Good Twin, Evil Twin
by Dr. Abraxas
Summary: A psycho is stalking highschool girls and Inu fears it's Naraku's plot to kill Kagome. Can Inu or the detectives stop the murderer before Kagome is next? Or is she doomed from the start?
1. Introduction

I want to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story: emmet849, PhantomAngel, Seiteki and Tainted Dreams. And I want to thank the members of the IYFG for granting this story two awards despite everything.

"Foreword" as of April 16, 2006:

The story assumes as its premise that the demons of the Feudal Era survived into the modern world. Inu's gang and Naraku's 'family' and the lineage of Miroku and Sango lived through the five hundred year 'gap.'

Histories are explained throughout the story. Starting from the Feudal Era (let's say some time after the very last episode of the series) Kagome goes through the well to fetch supplies from her time but the well stops working and she doesn't return. Nobody knows why. Inu and his gang continue their lives. Naraku, too, continues plotting and scheming.

The jewel is not reformed but Naraku absorbs demons and gains power – to such an extent that his appearance keeps him from leaving his lair so he relies on minions to do his work. The rest of the demons, anxious not to be discovered by Naraku or by humans, live in the shadows. There they create a whole other 'subculture' with its own rules and networks and whatnot. A few demons assimilate into the world through surgery but even they are forced to keep to themselves and do not trust strangers easily.

Naraku, just by being so powerful, controls the demonic world through fear. Not every demon likes him but few, if any, work against him. For reasons that will be clearer later he simply cannot leave his lair. He can (and does) walk around a little but the image of it is just too repulsive :) . Inuyasha, for his part, doesn't fall in line with the whole demonic subculture. He lives on his own by himself but maintains ties with Koga and Shippo and a few other humans. He keeps away from everyone especially Kagome.

Inuyasha knows Naraku's 'watching' him and if he gets too close to Kagome Naraku will find her and kill her. Naraku knows Kagome exists but knows very little besides what she looks like. He wants her dead and has 'hired' a serial killer who's certain to go after girls matching her type. As more and more teenagers who look like Kagome are found dead across the city, Inuyasha realizes what's happening and tries to find a way to thwart Naraku's plan.

And that, in general, is the setup of the story.

For a few specifics, the (important) new characters are:

Kuzen the cold, calculating killer. Her twin brother Zenku who's got issues but wants to be good and gets conflicted about how to stop his murderous sister.

Another related duo are the detectives investigating the murders of the serial killer, Kenshin and Kevin, one's half-Japanese the other's American (I wanted a counterweight to the whole Inuyasha/Sesshoumaru relationship.) they get along more or less.

Then the 'Kotsu twins; they're minions of Naraku with muted back stories.

And then the Medics Kaede (who's related to Miroku) and Kano (who's got a secret that may or may not make him an OC after all).

About the sex and violence: there's a gay relationship between Kevin and Kano but there's no gay sex. There appears to be incest happening between Zenku and Kuzen but the truth is much more disturbing. There's a rape scene with Kagura/Kohaku where Naraku also seems to be raping Kohaku's mind.

Other points to keep in mind: I didn't write this story pretending that I knew a lot about Tokyo, therefore, although it's Tokyo in name its NYC in spirit. (The names of streets, the descriptions of buildings, that sort of stuff.) There are plenty of 'Easter Eggs' so to speak, most were thrown in for laughs other were rather personal. Let's just say no little, tiny detail was 'random'; everything's got its meaning whether explained or not.

"Afterword" as of May 5, 2006:

This story is ripe with the influence of films. All throughout there are echoes of 'Psycho' and, at the end, there are visual and verbal quotes of 'Halloween.' And there's a bit of a nod to M. Night Shyamalan, too, in terms of his weird and twisted revelations that inspire my own drive to throw curveballs at the reader.

In addition, there are cross-references to other stories I've written. My Inuyasha-based 'The Loyal Servant' and 'Shippo's…Dragon' might be the most obvious. But a more direct influence is my Thundercat-based 'Good Twin, Evil Twin' (which was inspired by 'The Sixth Sense'). There the entire focus centers on the psychopathic twins and since it's a short story, it's more solid and well defined. (I'm a short-story writer and not very comfortable with these longer, novel-like stories.) I like to play with the dark and disturbing aspects of psychology and though sometimes I retread 'old territory', I always explore those ideas from new angles.

I wanted to do a lot here but I couldn't make it all fit into one coherent tale. I redid its outline twice, the last re-tooling being the most drastic, so to speak, with whole chapters and scenes dropped. (There were supposed to be twenty chapters.) What I omitted involved more of Kagura and Kohaku after the rape. There were scenes with Naraku and one of the detectives (chapter thirteen is a very scaled-back version of this side-plot). And there would have been more complex interactions between Zenku and the police (which I thought would be exciting but I feared risked revealing too much about what Kuzen was).

I opted for a tighter narrative because that appealed to the short-story writer in me. Like I said, I'm new to these long-forms. I knew doing that left certain aspects unfinished and I accepted that. It made sense, too, to me anyway, that it would be this way. If it feels like there should be more that's because that's the mood of uncertainly I wanted. Angst-like and tormented. There were two reasons that led me to think it was appropriate. First, the anime itself ends in the middle of things with Naraku not yet defeated and the jewel unformed. I wanted to capture that. Second, I withdrew finality because I wanted to leave those doors open for sequels.


	2. Chapter 1

**"Good Twin, Evil Twin" by Abraxas (2006-03-14)**

Chapter One

The cloud-cover, that poured out its unseasonable rain in the early morning, thinned and spread about the skyline of Tokyo until its once dense, foggy texture now attained a wispy and ethereal character. The great, fluffy masses that swirled about the city's peaks from vista to vista were gray with traces of white and dull with only hints here and there of the brightness that could have been. Such as it was, there was just enough sunlight filtering through that shadows were cast across the streets but the effect was muffled by the pervasive, blanket-like darkness and all around, everywhere, the ambiance was lifeless, impersonal.

If despair had a style, if fear had an aesthetic, it was painted across the steely facade of the capital. Even the fluorescent billboards, the neon lights, the hustle and bustle of indifferent crowds, the sounds of life echoing through the vast, narrow valleys of the streets, it was not enough to quell the stupor of depression the environs inspired.

It was afternoon - although by its looks it resembled evening - and while it had been raining since sunrise and would be raining by sunset for that brief respite there was not a drop falling from on-high. The air was dry, although the earth was muddy, the streets were wet and the trees were heavy with a shiny, silvery dew. The air was cool, too, unusual even after the rains at that time of the year but it was neither humid nor windy and therefore tolerable.

Indeed, everything under consideration, it was a perfect day to be outside for a walk - so Zenku thought.

Earlier, he had remained by the window, watching as the rain splattered against its glass, as the runoff trickled and streamed through the metalwork of the building's fire escape. He was a born observer, gleefully watching anything - anything dynamic, his attention span did not extend into the realm of static - and the rain was perfect. _Perfect._ He loved it: he loved the look of the drops shimmering in the week, dim light, bouncing chaotically, randomly upon the ground. He loved the smell of it. That particular smell of autumn rain. And he _loved_ the unpredictability of the lightning, the thunder - he was never afraid of it, though the same could not be said about Kuzen.

She did not share her brother's appreciation.

But as soon as the rain stopped he donned his jacket and left his apartment. Immediately out of the lobby, a drop fell from his window three-flights above to his clean-shaven head as he stood at the sidewalk below. He looked up and another fell between his eyes, coursed down his cheek. He brushed it aside and continued.

Zenku walked through the cramped, crowded streets into a part of the city that was not tersely populated at that time of day. What could have been called Tokyo's suburbs, where the apartment buildings were less than ten floors tall. And then, he treaded deeper into that sanctuary, past municipal offices and high schools, where enough trees were planted that it obscured the sights of any, leery, onlookers. Even the sights of the gods _he knew_ stared at him through the crests of the ivory-crowned spire.

_Was there nothing in that world those dead, red eyes could not see?_

It was there - there - that he noticed _the girl._ Black-haired and slender, complete with that high school uniform. Looking at her - at her shape, at her features - his heart skipped a beat. Something stirred. Between his legs, something grew awkward in size, getting heavier and lighter in a paradox of sensations. _Oh!_ he moaned, shutting his eyes for he could not stand the thought of the bouncing of those budding breasts, the image of the ruffling of that green, white skirt and all the pleasures of this world that lay therein.

"Kuzen does not have black eyes _but she gives them to other people!_" he stammered, smiling. The stir ceased but the feeling that something different was happing there could not be quenched.

So he turned and faced the park, standing at the curb as if waiting for cars to pass - cars that were not passing at that time. But he could not resist and turned, again, _to see_. To see - her fingers, holding a flyer, holding and taping it onto a pole.

_Oh!_ he sighed, gazing at those fingers. _What it would be to be held by those fingers!_

"Kuzen does not sleep _she waits!"_" and he laughed. He did not always laugh at his own mantras but that time the thought of it caught his fancy. It almost made the sensations vanish.

He made a half-witted motion toward the street - toward crossing the street - when he turned, faced the girl. At last features were visible and for the briefest of moments their eyes met. But - they were standing so far away, really, he could not be sure if she even saw him, standing there, staring there like an ape between the cars. But he saw her, _he saw her,_ her face framed by its locks. Her eyes - _why were her eyes so sad? Why did she look so sad?_ Her lips curled as if caught in mid-tear. _Why was she so sad?_

Was he so repulsive even the slightest glimpse was _that_ displeasing?

Stunned, he turned again toward the other side of the street, angling his head toward a windshield, a wet windshield, and caught his reflection.

His hairless head, clean-shaven face. It was not flawless although the moist reflectance of the glass obscured his blemishes. His eyes were wide and looked upon the world with a mature gaze that was more or less happy. His lips were pressed as if in a moment of thought. He was the model of beauty for a man of his age, there was little to be displeasing about his appearance, but - though he did not notice it, thought he could not conceive it - there was a fundamental disconnect between what was real and what _he saw._

Zenku smiled thinking he could have that girl if he were so motivated.

In that vein he stepped away - tentatively - and turned toward the girl. But in that space of time in which he studied himself she had moved from the pole to the street and was now so close, so painfully close that merely by _that turn_ his jacket and her skirt _brushed!_

_Brushed!_

He prayed the sound of his breath was muffled by the sound of the traffic.

She was beautifully, perfectly, shaped - _they all were_ -

His mind was a blur - but it was not from the pleasures, secret and forbidden, coursing through his flesh. It was from something utterly new and overpowering. In a haze he remembered, as if like a bolt out of the blue, the memory of a dark, cold office, a large and panoramic window, reflections of a man with facemask looking like an armored ninja and of another man, laughing and lunging, looking like himself _but not himself_. Shocked, he stumbled onto the desk _as if to get away_ until he was stopped by the visage - _just by the visage_ - of the man sitting across it. The man whose face was clouded by the shadows and darkness of his flowing, black hair but whose eyes - blood red - glowed and pierced into his soul. _It was the man who was holding pictures of girls._

Image after image flashed but only one was frozen, burned into his brain. It was that of a teenage girl - a high school girl by the looks of her uniform - riding a bicycle laughing as her locks swirled as the snapshot was caught.

And when Zenku opened his eyes he glared at the flyer at the pole: it was a missing person alert. And stared back into his face was the image of another girl encircled, highlighted. S_he resembled -_

He gasped - and realized that was why she was so sad.

He rubbed his cheek and whispered: "Poor girl, poor young, sweet thing! Nothing bad should be happening to you! You should be on your knees on my lap giving this world its pleasure…."

As he continued into the park across the street, he walked aimlessly but not randomly. His eyes alternated between looking at the path and at the few, hurried people trekking through that area. Most of the people were teenagers; others were younger and kept in tow by their older siblings. Girls, usually, as it was the custom for older female sisters to care for younger male brothers.

It was routine for him to amble through the park amid the youth as school was letting out. It reminded him of a time when he was younger but not happier. He was a sad, lonely child. Always, as far back as he remembered, he felt as if he were alone, _missing something._ Something important. Something he could not be without. The rest of the children were not fond of him - strange though he did nothing overly wrong, he was studious and respectful. Perhaps it was a power innate yet repressed - a sense of sorts - particular to life that knew what offspring was alright and what was off. It was as if somehow, someway, they all knew he was missing something, too, and were afraid of him because of it. But he gave up on people and spent his youth away. Watching. That was how he learned to survive - watching - knowing and realizing when to withdraw, where to blend-in.

It was a subtle existence

Now - now - it was not missing anymore. He was happy and determined to relive the past the way it should have been. And he walked the part when school let-up. He walked by the schools, too, even for a time thinking about adopting just for the excuse it afforded to go back to school. He missed it, the idealized, perfect memory of it, and he yearned for it now that he could have it -

"And best of all," he thought to himself, "this time I'll get to fuck the pretty girls! I'll get to have them ooh and aah as I kiss them and grope them!"

He would not hurt them - he could not, it was not in _his_ psyche - but there was nothing he would not do for a girl's special touch. Just the thought of one of them fumbling with his fly and reaching into his pants sent him into realms of arousal that overwhelmed his better judgment. He was walking - gasping and heaving - and the bulge between his legs threatened to reveal itself to the world.

"The chief export of Kuzen is pain," he said as thoughts of _that_ girl kissing his soft, shriveled penis - kissing it while it grew at the - caused that awkward _heaviness_ to return to stumble his gait. "The chief export of Kuzen is pain," he continued - but the high-pitched tone alarmed the impending failure of his mantra. The fantasy evolved: his penis was now overly long and disproportionately fat, looking more like a bottle of soda than an erection, it angled downward too fat and heavy to stick up - and the feeling of it filling with semen verging upon the moment of violent release it was too much for his legs to bear. He saw himself crouching unsteadily as the girl - on her hands and knees - kept kissing and suckling his over-swollen, point-like tip. And he wanted - at that moment, at that instant - to see himself splattering his white, hot seed like rain across her lips. "If you can see Kuzen, she can see you," he stammered as a better vision - of him ejaculating a single, spasm over he face onto her hair - formed itself within his mind mimicking all of those American porn stars he admired. "If you can't see Kuzen you're fifteen seconds from death." It was difficult to speak through his quick, short breaths. It was difficult to walk and concentrate while it seemed that all of his blood rushed into his groin. The mantras were not quelling the sensations between his legs and he was weakening, dying a kind of death not of body but of will.

He found a park bench still wet from the storm and sat, cradling his face into his hands.

"Ah, better than a lip job," he said unaware if others could be hearing. "Better, I could be rubbing that cock between her breasts, _I could be humping her chest like an animal!_"

He wondered, too, just how wet his load could make her shirt and gasped at the thought of it.

"If only Kuzen were here, she would bring me back to my senses. Oh, god, I need her! I cannot be _like this_! Can I - help me, Kuzen, help me from myself." He prayed and shuddered - but what if Kuzen _were_ there? Her ideas of help and love could be wrong.

Zenku mumbled sprawled over the bench as across the distance the boy children played and girl teenagers in their white and green uniforms watched. And then a faint, singular drop hit his head and skidded his hairless contours onto his face, his lips, where it trickled toward the ground like a sort of tear. It was followed by another and another. Faster, harder.

"Kuzen? That's you, isn't it? Was I a bad boy again?"

And at once he found he was at peace.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

All throughout not a feature of Kanna's face was moved to betray a hint of emotion - if, indeed, the demonic creature was capable of such a human act. The deceptively small and weak-looking figure stood at the center of the office wearing an outfit of white - the white shirt, white pants, white shoes, seemed to be protesting its innocence too much - and holding a mirror toward the far, distant corners of the immense chamber. Everything, everywhere around that sad, unresponsive female was cloaked by a darkness and shadow intended to be permanent - the only light within seemed to be evolving from her mirror, from her image and from a pair of glowing, red eyes.

The curt, wry smile beneath those eyes remained obscured by the void but the laugh that evolved from its lips left no doubt it was there And the sound of it, intermingled with what was coming out of Kanna's mirror - a symphony of animalistic grunts and desperate cries - added a touch of ageless malevolence. A flash of lightning and a pang of thunder completed the ghastly image.

The intermittent illumination revealed the presence of two, other figures within the office, farther away from the eyes to the chamber's stately entrance. The male figure was clad in old, ancient garments whose ninja-like blackness melted seamlessly into the environment - only the upper portions of his head were revealed, showing black hair, pale skin and dark eyes that like Kanna's lacked emotion. The female figure was dressed in modern clothes - unlike the other two she grew visibly more and more disgusted by the minute by what she was hearing.

And when the sounds of it proved to be too much, she ambled toward the door - it only inflamed the eyes which laughed louder, deeper than before - she wanted to say something, do something, but at moments like that she knew she was hopelessly and utterly powerless even to think the thoughts.

Out of the office - and out of its miasma - she was `free'. She covered her face with her fan and sighed, wondering in what far and distant corner of the globe her savior was hidden. If he was alive, still.

* * *

At that time of night, amid the rainstorm and the traffic, few people walked the streets. Fewer people walked the streets _aimlessly._ To be fair, though, his nocturnal comings and goings were far from mindless. But to the naked eye, raw and untrained, his wanderings gave that impression. The figure in the red coat, whose head was always cloaked by hood or by cap, developed many artificial ways to blend into the world for he could not hide as naturally as the others of his kind. And that role of vagrant always proved to be the most successful.

Such as it was, he found it easier to work the `business' at night - at night, when people were more accepting and forgiving of strangers - at night to scout intelligence, to watch and observe and, from time to time, to work at the odd jobs his friends with connections secured for him. Living in modern-Tokyo did have its advantages since it was open all of the time. In the past that was not so and life had been very hard. He did not know how he could have survived without those friends.

The red-cloaked figure, whose silver-white hair could be seen through the hood, eased his hand into his jacket to feel the hilt of a weapon carefully hidden along the side of his body. That part of the city was strong with that scent. A domain of vile, putrid miasma it was and ordinarily he would have avoided the place all together but that night was different. It had been different for a while now - but now the feeling of impending doom was becoming evermore overpowering - and now the feeling _she_ was in danger was getting worse and worse by the instant. What he needed were clues to deduce the designs that spider was spinning against her.

What he would have done to be with her again yet he knew if he got too close to her everything would be revealed and it would be their doom. All he could do was watch. And watch from a distance, at sunset, at sunrise, when she went to and from home and school, when she was most vulnerable _and did not know it_.

The stranger among men stopped - suddenly, unexpectedly - and looked behind. Glossy, electric eyes scanned the scene through the curtains of water falling out of the sky. There were hints of motions, suggestions of designs. He clutched that weapon and stepped slowly, deliberately. If there would be trouble _-_

* * *

"Am I a bad boy, Kuzen?" Zenku asked, rubbing his eyes as his vision - and the rest of the world - came back into focus. "Will you punish your brother - how will you punish your brother?" He was shocked by the immediate disconnect between one scene and the next. Where once there was light, now there was dark; where once the clamor of life surrounded him, now the stillness of death enveloped him. "I'm in trouble, aren't I, Kuzen? Kuzen!"

But there was no reply, only the faint, imagined echo of a reply. And it ebbed - as if that ethereal whisper could be lower - it melted into a deep silence, cold and rigid.

"Kuzen? Kuzen! Kuzen?"

Even out of his lips, the name evaporated like a puff of smoke evolving outward into the universe - it was a waking nightmare and he was helpless, senseless.

What had changed? It seemed to be only a moment ago that he had slumped over the park bench. What transpired that he now lay across the dirt and rubble, over a slab of concrete and rock, the smell of rain and wet-earth stabbing into his skull? He stopped rubbing and started blinking, but the view of the world did not improve - it only plummeted headlong into terminal blackness. And he was struck by how bitterly cold the air became.

Looking right and left frantically like a demented cartoon figure, the impressionable corners of his brain wondered if that were not what it was like to be coffined.

_Kuzen!_ Zenku asked _to himself_ yet a distant, mocking resonance answered.

A surge of adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream - was he back inside that office?

His heart raced and he stood abruptly - suddenly aware of energies he thought he did not possess - and just as quickly as he arose he stumbled backward until a cold, rough wall stopped him and held him at bay. His eyes, adjusting to the dim, eerie light, were instantly drawn into a stare, a duel, with another pair of what he took to be eyes. Two red, round orbs so close he could have reached out and touched them.

Zenku sighed and laughed: it was not a pair of red, inhuman eyes but two red brake lights. It was a car and it was only through the miracle of coincidence that the image of its taillights was conveyed unobstructed from the street to the park wherever within it he stood.

Yes, he was still within the park, within its facilities, only then, at that time, were its features, its shape, its substance, emerging out of obscurity coming into view.

He stood at the end of a short, wide passage that cut through the base of an open-air pavilion. At the end, at the edge cutting between the cavernous interior and the wild exterior, he leaned against the wall and watched the rain. The droplets were bristling the leaves of the trees, bouncing against the blades of the grass and striking the hard, immoveable fixtures of the children's playground. The water's unsteady flow pounded an asymmetric beat as it fell onto an ledge above his head - whose overflow trickled upon his shoes, wet his feet.

He stood, stray sprays misting his face, and it returned with an orgy of sensual zeal.

It made sense - partly because he wanted it to make sense and partly because it _did_ make sense. Simple, logical. Exactly the steps a sane, rational man would have taken given the situation. The rain retuned and intensified and he sought immediate shelter. And he found it, a relatively warm and dry place, there within the passages beneath the park's central pavilion. The open-air edifice and its concrete deck, its concrete seats and tables etched with the patterns of chessboards. There by the restrooms, by the closets. The secret, hidden antechambers into which the general public was not allowed.

It was _the_ place to be; it had always been, as far as he remembered. He recalled how in his youth he often visited it and hid within its forbidden zones. Every now and then even with a girl. He smiled as one, particular girl's memory resurfaced: she had these familiar long, black locks. Right then and there he relived the way he brushed that hair aside as he latched onto her and grinded his hips into hers. The girl, for her own part, was unresponsive as he humped her through their clothes - was she unable to sense it or was she trying to ignore it. _Could he be so bad at it that it would have been easier to ignore it rather than to fight it?_ What ever it was, it was unreal and unnatural how indifferent she was but he was growing harder and hotter and in that state of carnal bliss it did not matter if she liked it or not. The whole memory of it - though fragmented and disjointed - came as fresh _as if it was new_ and he started to get aroused. Reasoning that he was alone, he pressed his palm against the bulge swelling between his legs and rubbed.

But then, was it new because it had been forgotten or was it new because it had been _invented?_

Still - something about that girl, something about that girl's hair was so, intimately familiar.

No - it was too late to conjecture. As a bolt of lightning flashed he saw that he was not alone within the passage. In the pulse of blinding light - and equally blinding realization - he saw a shape slumped against the wall directly askew of the restroom doors.

He was not alone and fearing he had been caught in the middle of perversion he took his hand away from his pant's front.

"Um, hello?" he asked, slumping toward the figure - that remained motionless as the thunder crashed even as he, admirer of the phenomenon, was jolted by its effect. "Hello? Are you asleep? Um?"

Zuken reached into his jacket's left pocket and noticed - for the first time - that it was stuffed with a moist, silky material of one sort or another. Whatever it was, it was not there before. From his right pocket he produced a lighter and ignited it. At once a soft, blue light illuminated the space and as the cloak of darkness and shadow retreated the figure was revealed to be the girl, the very self-same girl he encountered that afternoon. She looked just as sad with her eyes closed as with them open and by the tranquility of that countenance he could not help but think she was asleep.

And then he reached for her shoulder - and what should have been warm, supple living flesh revealed itself to be cold and stiff. The rest of the body reacted falling away onto the ground like the second-hand of a watch sweeps its face. Mechanical. Dead.

He screamed but the act of a pang of thunder drowned the shriek.

"Kuzen! Punish _me_ not _them!_"

He returned the lighter back into his jacket and stood, paced, heart racing and pulse pounding.

This was not the way it was supposed to be. But he could not blame Kuzen when it was all, fundamentally his fault. She did the things she did for love, for him, and he would have to be stronger if he wanted to keep her this time Or - to protect him from himself - if she made wrong moves, stupid mistakes, her hand could be revealed and he would be alone again. And he could not be alone again. Maybe he could live without fantasies of forbidden contact. Maybe he could lock himself in his apartment until the crack of doom. But he could not live without Kuzen. _His Kuzen._

"I am so weak," he mumbled as he shook his head in his hands.

He put his hands back into his jacket's pockets and was stunned, again, at the feeling of what was stuffing one of the two enclosures. It was a cloth, wet and soft, _but what was it?_ He did not pull it out, whatever it was, not then and there. In that place.

He took his hands away and noticed the one that touched the material was now wet, _really wet,_ and it had not been so before. He examined his fingers through the faint lights of the nighttime city obscured by the rainstorm. He could see their shapes and contours glimmer. He could see they shimmered with the flat, even moisture of something - _something_ - that was not rain for it was too dark, too dense to be water.

"Oh my god, Kuzen, is this how you punish your brother?"

Zenku dared not touch anything - not in that condition. For a moment he feared if his hand had been smeared when he was palming his genitals. He reached out into the rain through the passage's opening and let the downpour cleanse his fingers. The way the building had been constructed the rainwater flowed away into the earth surrounding it - still, that part of the pavilion was below ground level and it could have flooded. Behind him, by the body, by the doors, was a pair of storm drains. He could hear water flowing and echoing as runoff collected within them but at that time they were not flooding. Not yet.

Letting another moment pass, he looked at the girl whose body lay along the floor against the wall. Was it a side effect of the way she slipped or was it like that all along? But by whatever method, her skirt - once green and now god only knew what its color was - was up tucked against her stomach. Its displacement revealed that between her legs she was exposed, naked.

Against every fiber of his being he approached

"What did you do, Kuzen?" The body did not have any obvious traumas - at least as far as could be seen. He reached into the void of hair and flesh framed by the long, white socks and the rest of the high-school uniform. He felt the short, sharp stubble of freshly-sprouted pubic hair prick and sting his palm. He felt, too, a strange sensation of wetness. A thick, familiar wetness.

He cried thinking that for a moment of guilty pleasure - _no_ - for the fantasy of a moment of guilty pleasure, the girl was forced to pay with her life. Kuzen could be so jealous. What female could be safe around him? Indeed, it was not supposed to be this way, and more and more he felt as if he had been betrayed by those blood-red eyes as though he made a deal with the devil.

He stood and sighed, bowing his head and bringing the hood of his jacket up over his brow. He stepped into the blackness of the night, rain hitting his head and shoulders hard as if they were pellets. He trekked through the park trying desperately not to look as if he were a stranger. He stopped under lampposts and by crosswalks to look at his watch not that he wanted to know what time it was but that he wanted to make it seem as if he were engaged in business of one sort or another and was in a hurry to get from one shop to the next. It was a simple, little gesture that carried enormous yet subtle connotations - and if it worked any stray, wayward witnesses would not pinpoint him as that stranger responsible for yet another death.

Along the way he passed by those cars in between which he stood when he girl brushed his jacket. He put his hands back into its pockets and regretted it, quickly pulling them out and letting the waters wash the evidence away.

"Kuzen is not dead but gives death," he uttered a sort of makeshift mantra while passing the wet, deformed flyer. The flyer the girl posted. He figured there would be another flyer, maybe the same in every respect, but now with two girls faces' highlighted.

"Maybe, if I think hard enough, maybe I can find a way to save you, Kuzen, like you're trying to save me. To save you from yourself. I can be strong, too, you know. I must be strong. Or I will be alone again. Alone in _this_ world."

In his mind, he saw the beauty of that girl transforming into something utterly hideous and vile. The warm, supple feel of her body becoming just the cold and rigid shapes of things that once had been alive and now were - or were they always from the start - something base and coarse that billions of years of biology metamorphosized into human form. A bulk of rubbery-like organs and tissues - was that mass of innards wrapped with skin all that was mankind? Truly, it was in imperfect world, badly designed, poorly organized, and without Kuzen he did not want to remain in it.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The lights were bright within the Omega Squad's office. Perhaps too bright, blinding, for that time of night. The air was hot, stale although not completely, utterly displeasing; there was the smell of disinfectant but it was not too strong to be bothersome. The place was quiet, too, except for the sounds of people filling past as they went from department to department within Tokyo's 12th precinct. Every now and then there would be a young man in handcuffs paraded by the two, remaining detectives - the rest retired earlier that evening. And just as often as that a set of distressed and shame-faced parents shuffled through the maze of desks.

But it was the light that got to Kev. There was just something about fluorescent light, and its dead, lifeless light, that did not agree with him and inspired more than a little bit of melancholy in the detective. He tapped his pen and let it fall onto the cover of the folder the contents of which he had been sifting through for almost an hour - it was that damned, detestable light with its eerie, otherworldly humming, echoing like heavy metal within his skull - he could not take it anymore.

Detective Kev, holding a cup of cold, soggy Ramen, swiveled over to Detective Ken, who was busy studying another folder, and spoke in a staggering, haggard accent: "You know, um, I must say, um, I'm shocked. Er, I was led to believe, um, from TV, that sushi was what people ate, um, in this country."

Detective Ken allowed himself to smile - after being certain no body saw it. "Detective Kev-san," now it was his turn to speak in broken and accented English. "Did not you parents teach manner? You no eat Ramen like that; you sip on, sip off."

Kev stifled the laugh while Ken put the folder aside.

"You know, Ken, they told me these sorts of things were rare in Japan." The younger brother looked up at the older brother as both sat back along their chairs.

"It has been known to happen, from time to time, but it is rare." He continued, putting the folder away into the desk. "Tell me, if this were New York, after a fourth murder like this, what would be happening?"

"Well, privately, we'd have psychiatrists write up profiles. And we'd be on the local news, telling as many people as possible about it."

"That makes sense," Detective Ken conceded. "And that's what would be happening here."

"Should be happening." Detective Kev added. "At least the boss is getting us more help. I can understand not alerting the public right away to prevent, chaos, but I cannot understand why we were denied even a psychotherapist until now. It's weird, big bro, there are so many things about this case that just doesn't add up."

Ken grunted, nodding. Kev concurred.

Between themselves the brothers - half-brothers to be exact - possessed a way to communicate that cut perfectly across the language barriers. Ken, who was half-Japanese, understood English but could not speak it too well. Kev, who was all-American, understood Japanese and could, at times, speak it without difficulty. Together, though, they spoke to each other in their native languages which made it easy for them but outsiders found their conversations difficult to follow.

"Tell me about it," Ken asked, leaning across his desk and looking at that bowl of Ramen - despite its condition it still seemed very appetizing. "There's no one about, we should be free to discuss."

"I'm no shrink," Kev said, tapping his temple, "but it doesn't strike me that we're looking for a normal, everyday serial killer - a man, I mean. Most serial killers are men, and even if they're straight and their victims include other men, there's always evidence of sex. But, who's ever killing these kids, if it's a man, isn't getting off on it. And the way a few of the girls were torn up, it seemed like _jealousy_ ."

"You mean you think the killer could be a woman?"

But Kev did not answer as much as he nodded.

"That's crazy; who's ever killing them must be strong, physically, too strong to be a woman."

Kev shook his head and sighed - it was a late, long night.

"Don't go Dirty Harry on me, Kev-san," Ken said, again with that accent.

The American stood and unbuttoned his collar. The Japanese leaned back again and crossed his legs. At that moment Medic Kaede, a sleek, slender woman with violet eyes filed past the detectives.

"Medic Kaede, have you seen Medic Kano?" Kev asked, just lightly touching the woman's shoulder.

With a sly smile and eyes that undressed men - sometimes secretly, sometimes not-secretly - she angled her head and said: "Medic Kano was called to a crime scene a half-hour ago, Detective Markus."

With a nod of his head she continued - a slight, momentary smirk came to his lips. For reasons he did not fully understand Medic Kaede always gloved her right hand. He had once asked Medic Kano about it - since he knew their families were close - and he said something about accidents with acids while at college. But Kev was a cop and his mind was keen, too keen, and when things did not add up -

"Kev? Kev? Earth to Kev?"

"Huh? What is it?"

Ken: "Work is not a place to be day dreaming about you know who! You know, if _they_ ever find out - "

Kev: "I know, I know, big bro, I'm dead. Anyway, what's got you all worked up?"

"Like I was saying," he answered while he stood to fetch their coats. "While you were day dreaming about your favorite medic, the boss called."

"The - the phone rang? I wasn't that out of it," he stammered yet in near-perfect Japanese while he caught the coat his brother flung aside. "I wasn't that out it," he said almost to no body as his brother all but fled the squad room.

"Quickly, boss said it might be another one."

"I'll be right there, wait, wait," he said, suddenly fully getting back to reality. He fled past another one of those sets of sickened-looking parents. "Ken - _Detective Ken_ - wait. I swear, I wasn't that out of it. She's not even my type."

The older, sad-looking parents looked at themselves for a moment, hesitated, and continued.

* * *

Zenku did not head straight back home out of fear he might have been followed. That eyes - not _those eyes_ but other eyes as keen and mortal as his own - might have been watching. Rather than the brash and irrational, he chose to be calm and logical. He wandered about the city, a whole world away from the park and from what awaited there, he roamed through the streets with the crowds that gathered here and there because melting into the world made it safe Otherwise, if he had turned home with single-minded determination, if he stood out in anyway, someone would have noticed and - when the news of his sister's latest crime was leaked - someone would have remembered. The police would have been led by his footprints onto his front door destroying forever, eternally what mattered in his life.

Such as it was, after trekking through Tokyo for four hours, he found himself back at the edifice of the building. He sighed - but it was not the right time and place to be complacent for it was raining and standing outside for too long might prove to be suspicious. Without further ado, he opened the door and bolted into the lobby. The foyer was about fifteen by fifteen feet square, clean and well lit. There was a canister for trash and another for umbrellas. On one wall was a board posting notices by neighbors and residents of the building. On the other wall were the mailboxes. He did not bother to check his - he never got any mail anyway - but just the same he ran his fingers across it, its letter, its tag with his mangled name, it felt empty as the sound of its front plate jingling echoed within its hollowness.

He thought about pressing the buzzer and balked; his sister was too upset to be disturbed by the buzzer. He produced a keychain, a very simple ring with numerous keys, only four of which could be used at home Beyond the unlocked, front door was the inner chamber with the stairs before and the elevators behind, deep into the start of hallways that led into the laundry room and the super's apartment. Only three flights of stairs awaited, an easy, brisk climb, but the steps creaked and he did not want to make a sound. His sister, with that temper, no doubt alerted his fellow residents with that gait and there was no need to be adding to the drama.

Zenku reached the elevator, pressed the button and waited. A moment later he boarded; a moment after he landed. His apartment was down the way at the part of the hall that was unlit. Perpetually. It was not always like that - only since Kuzen returned - but somehow, someway, the lights installed about that area of the building would not live for long. Almost as if they were sabotaged.

Standing in the dark, at his right was the door of his apartment, as his left was the door of the facing apartment. And he could tell by looking at its crevice that his neighbor's lights were on inside and that his neighbor was standing behind it, looking at him through its peephole. His heart skipped a beat at the shock of the realization he was being watched but he was careful not to be visibly alerted or alarmed. He wanted to be as innocent as possible. If it were, even, possible.

It seemed his sister must have made a scene when she came back that afternoon.

And despite everything, his careful planning, his clear-headed action, suspicion tainted into his very soul. Was there nothing he could do? Nothing he could say? Was he fated to be outcast from the world to the crack of doom?

It was then and there that he wondered if the blood had been washed away by the storm It was strange how the lobby was not wet and neither the stairs nor the hallways showed the telltale evidence of leftover water dragged by shoes a step at a time. And at his door, its sides, its knob, its welcome-mat, there was not a glimmer of moisture natural or unnatural.

Yet all the while he stood amid thought deep within the building _it_ could be heard, that splattering of rain hitting the skylights fifteen stories up the shafts of the stairwells.

Kuzen was good at covering her tracks, as if she had had centuries to perfect the art.

At the door he touched the letter that marked it. Under its bronze-hued shape, seared into the wood, was the echo of its earlier, kanji designation. After the war, that sector of Tokyo sheltered American soldiers; much of the Japanese of that area had been Romanized for the foreigners and into that day most of it had not bee converted back. He tapped the key, turned the knob. He opened the door a tiny, little bit until he noticed the chain had not been set and then he opened it the rest of the way, enough to let him enter.

Inside the lights were off and he kept them off. The apartment was dark and shadowy yet aglow with a weird, eerie light whose source could not be discerned. He put the keys into his pants and placed his hands into his pockets, _his jacket's pockets._ Again he felt that thing and reacted - swiftly, shockingly - ejecting it out of his garment onto the cold, hard floor. At the same, exact time coins he did not notice earlier fell along with _it_ and landed upon the tile work, circling about as they came to rest under the furniture. He cursed; he hated messes, all messes, especially messes he caused without thinking.

But what was he to do? He was too tired to search for loose change, anyway, wherever it came from.

Resigned, he flung off his jacket, letting it fall away from that thing that remained crumpled and moist where it lay against the floor.

The window - it was as he left it - indeed, the apartment did not suffer any material change since that afternoon. And it was quiet, too. As silent as a tomb.

"Where are you, Kuzen?" he whispered recalling one of his last mantras, about not seeing Kuzen.

But there was not the slightest, subtlest suggestion of an answer and he sighed. Could it be that he was alone?

He approached the window.

It was a view of the skyline, of the buildings with their grid work of tiny, multicolored windows that appeared to be more like stars than like windows. And at the center stood _the_ building. From base to crown, it was long and straight. At the tip its rectangular shaft terminated through a series of shorter, thinner blocks until everything, every part of it, evolved into an art deco-like spiral antenna. That night the structure of its crown was awash by deep, red light. The whole effect of it, of it so remote and so isolated from the rest of the skyscrapers, suggested a macabre, gothic lighthouse, beckoning the demonic forces of the dead of night and guiding it through the maze of the city, guiding and prodding it into itself like a spider amid a web streets and avenues. It was not exactly Tokyo's or even Japan's tallest building but it was at once its most beautiful and terrifying.

One night _it appeared,_ it just appeared, no one ever talked about it, said they saw it. Could it be that the whole, entire city was oblivious to that one, singular building? Could it be that no one saw it but him?

Zenku was taken aback _into that office._ Upon the desk his arms and legs were spread wide apart. He arose, arching and slumping away from the light to the void until he stared into _those eyes_. His own focused and adjusted, revealing the face and the body, the naked body, that seemed to be attached to the eyes. But there was more; and there was more _unseen_ for only fragments of that figure retained the proportions of a man and the rest was either by the lack of light or by the self-preserving nature of the mind obscured forever from memory.

Suddenly there was the feeling of something striking and digging into his neck - an icy, sharp touch penetrated into his body and cascaded throughout his blood.

With a gasp he returned to the here and now.

"What? What's this, Kuzen?"

His face was hot and wet but it was not from sweat oozing out of his pores. The windows showed the effect, too, as steam dumped layers of mist upon its cold, icy panes completely obscuring the view. Rubbing at the glasswork, the wetness remained making it impossible to see through the window again. There was so much moisture it trickled down from the sill to the floor like a kind of indoor rain.

In the short time he had been trapped by his mind the apartment suffered a material change that only gradually came into focus.

There was light behind Zenku. Was it always there? Was it unnoticed until that moment, that instant? He turned to see: it was the bathroom. Its door was open, its light was on and steam poured into the living room.

"You startled me, Kuzen," he stammered, his heartbeat returning to normal.

It would only be natural that his sister would have wanted to bathe after what happened. He, too, needed to be cleansed in many, many ways.

He approached the bathroom and noticed that he was naked. But he did not recall taking off his clothes - and he did not recall his sister collecting the spilt, loose change and stacking it into regular, sorted piles upon the television set. He did not remember anybody placing his jacket upon the stand or moving out of sight, out of mind, that damned, detestable thing that he flung off in horror. Yet, there it was, all of it, the evidence of his senses could not be denied.

Within and the door shut behind him - before him was the bathroom, small and cramped, no larger than a walk-in closet. Yet the shower fitted two `comfortably' _if they were close._ The curtain was ajar and through its semi-transparent fabric he saw the body of his twin although most of her form was disfigured and distorted by the rapid turbulence of the steamy vapors. Yet in that shape and form she seemed to be the reflection of his very own soul.

He sidestepped the curtain and instantly stood face to face with his sister - they were as naked as the day they were born.

"Zenku, I missed you," she whispered, lovingly, while she wrapped her arms about his waist and tugged his skin onto her body.

"Kuzen." He let her chin rest upon his shoulder. She let his hand wander about her long, black locks. "Why do we do these things, Kuzen?"

She chuckled at her brother's question and deepened her already-tight hug such that their flesh was _intimately_ touching.

He reacted with a jerk at the feel of his smooth, hairless genitals rubbing against the sharp, short stubble about her vagina. He was struck, too, by the difference between the body and his sister - Kuzen was alive, warm and inviting, begging to be penetrated and filled _with his semen._ His heart skipped a beat and the stirring returned but it was different, though, it did not bring ill feelings of awkwardness. Rather, it was as if there was nothing wrong with the reaction.

Again she giggled reaching down, between his legs - but just the thought of such overt contact drew him away.

"No, Kuzen, this can't be right."

"My sweetest, my dearest, if this isn't right, nothing's right." She held and squeezed his hands. "We were like this, closer, longer than any two people could be. Watching each other growing out of nothing. What can be more intimate than that? Realer than that? If this isn't right, nothing's right _in this world._" She lay her face against his chest, her small, rounded breasts teasing his flesh as she breathed bringing her nipples into and out of contact.

"There must be another way to stop the urges I have. Kuzen. Do you know what it's like to see all of those girls - _virgins_ - that I couldn't have."

She did not speak, only held him.

His erection throbbed against the lips of her vagina, her sexual organ feeling more like fingers than anything else.

"Zenku, this is how it should be. Don't you see how much you love me? How much I love you? Don't waste your time looking for this inside other girls, even if they have that paradise they would not give it to you. They would not give it to you then, why would they give it to you now? Oh, Zenku, Zenku, when you were younger they hate you. Older they fear you. Those girls live in a different world. Another world. You are not allowed there anymore - if you ever were - and it's too late for you."

She pressed him against the wall of the shower, the spray from the head falling directly between them.

"But what _you_ do is dangerous!" he struggled to speak it sternly. "And if you get caught, what then? I'll kill myself, I cannot exist without you."

"It's too late for you - don't you get it? You are doomed to be alone _with me!_ If you just stayed away from those girls, I wouldn't have to do what I do." She slapped his face, hard, leaving a mark and making a sound that resonated through his skin. And it seemed that not only had her demeanor changed but her physical form mutated from something that looked so fragile - identical with the very same girl she killed earlier - to something that resembled a demon complete with the flash of deep, blood-red eyes. "If you were a real man and not this weakling, I would be a normal woman and not this monster!"

At times like that she could be so awful he was frozen by the terror of it. And there he remained, naked and helpless, as his older twin sister dominated him. She clutched his genitals like she clutched a rag-doll and taunted his size, his inadequacy.

"Zatoichi's favorite color is Kuzen," he thought at the shock, repeating the mantra.

All the while, despite the pain and the horror of that violent, raging temper, he grew bigger and harder. She began to masturbate him with the most violent, penetrative motions. He did not resist her treatment - for he was transfixed like a paralyzed man - out of the fear of the real, bitter pain he knew she could be inflicting. She jerked violently, as if working _herself_ into climax, as she ravaged him with her hands.

"Kuzen does not blink, ever." He did not know if he was saying it in his head or out loud.

And he could have sworn that he did not feel anything from the ejaculation. Instead it was semen-splattered Kuzen who was enrapt by orgasm. _His orgasm_.

When it was over, after another moment of exhaustion and discontinuity, he found himself walking from the bathroom, across the living room, to the bedroom. The chamber was large enough to fit one, thin bed, which they shared. Although to be sure - as he thought about it - they did not share it, she let him use it. Everything else, from the books to the artwork, was his but the bed and what went beneath the bed was hers. And just as he entered he caught her hunched over _the box_ - the neon-pink, Hello Kitty Box - the box he was not ever, _ever_, allowed to touch. He averted his eyes while he saw her drop a wet-looking, crumpled piece of cloth into it. In the dim, dark light, in the night, the item remained unknown, formless, but it seemed to be a frilly, silky thing _that a girl might have owned._

Shutting the box, she slid it under the bed and turned to face Zenku.

"Did you like the gift I left you?" She planted a kiss on his lips and rested her chin on his shoulder. She seemed to be at peace, calm -

"Gift."

Kuzen always left him bizarre little trinkets. And he recalled the object inside his jacket's pocket. It was not just wet but wet with blood. He looked at his hands - its trace was gone - yet was it ever there?

"My cat," he whispered, petting her mane about her ears.

It was the queerest thing, so strange, so unexpected. But it seemed for a moment that there was something different about Kuzen's ears. Something rough, imperfect.

At last the monster was asleep and he sighed. Truthfully he did not fear _for his safety_, it was the rest of the world that ought to be afraid.

"I'll try to be stronger, if you'll try to be nicer. Please, please," he half-whispered, half-whimpered. "Nicer. You just can't go around killing people."

She looked at him, through him, and it did not seem her lips moved as she said: "Kuzen does not give death -"


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Yup, yup, this appears to be it," the man behind the wheel said matter-of-factly. And it was _it_ as the flashing lights of an ambulance already on scene indicated. "We missed the party."

"Told you to take that left turn an Albuquerque," the man next to the man behind the wheel quipped. "Ah, but we always miss the party, Ken, that's the point, I guess."

Ken shook his head and `parked' the vehicle half-on and half-off the grass of the park. Even as he cut off the engine Kev was exiting and fumbling with his notebook and pen, those trademarks of each and every detective the world over.

At once Kev was met by an officer wearing a raincoat - the rain that marred that day from sun up to sun set had been settling into a sort of mist while the air that was cold and rigid was evolving their breaths into a kind of smoke. The figure, standing under the conical shaft of light of a lonely streetlamp upon which were the mutilated, soggy remains of a poster, asked amid stern, Japanese tones who he was and what he was doing.

Kev did not miss a beat, extending his badge and saying: "Detective Kevin Markus, Omega Squad."

Yet, it was not until Ken also showed his badge and introduced himself to be Detective Kenshin Matsui that the officer - who remained to be named - seemed to be satisfied.

All in all, Kev took the encounter well. Mostly because the alternative would have been a useless gesture. After five years working at Tokyo's Omega Squad, he knew officers unfamiliar with him would be naturally inclined not to believe an American in Japan could be a real detective. A decorated detective at that.

Kev continued: "Heard the boss say you guys found another body. Maybe you can take us over?"

"Yes, yes," the still-nameless officer nodded and pointed toward the center of the park.

It occurred to Kev that he did not know the man's name. He just assumed the man was a real cop. And in the back of his head lurked the urge to ask to see _his badge_.

"What is that?" Ken asked while the officer walked ahead - before them a structure was emerging through the darkness of the night.

"Seems to be an open air theater," Kev answered. It appeared to be an open-air theater but it was not easy to say through all of the shadows. "If that's where the body was found there could have been witnesses," he added.

"Hmmm." Ken frowned; he was not as impulsive as Kev and often kept his suspicions and observations to himself. Or, if they were to be discussed, they were talked about inside the squad room. He disapproved of his partner being so glib, so open, but dismissed it as the side effect of raw nerves - he knew his brother resented being asked to see his badge all of the time.

"The body was found under the pavilion," the officer interjected. He raised the yellow, caution tape and helped the detectives through. "It was found beneath by the restrooms."

Behind the tape the path they trekked forked. One side led up to the pavilion, the other side descended down to the bathrooms. And utility closets. The officer, who continued to be nameless, pointed the detectives onto the proper, down-sloping pathway and stopped - he was not allowed any closer.

"Oh - and one more thing," stammered Kev. He stopped and looked at the officer, flipping his notebook and clicking his pen. "Paperwork. I'll need your name and badge number, sir."

Ken smirked carefully turning his face away.

The officer pushed aside his cloak revealing his shirt and his badge pinned upon it - Kev jotted the information.

"Thanks." He followed his partner into the depths.

The officer bowed quickly and spun back toward his post by the lamp.

"Paperwork," Ken said.

"What?" Kev smiled, putting his notebook and pen away. "What?"

Within the abyss that greeted them as they approached, it was impossible to be oblivious of the frenzy of police work. Notably the intermittent flashing of cameras taking pictures. And as they neared, one step at a time, for those present it was impossible to be ignorant of certain, underlying familiarities between the detectives Kenshin and Kevin: from the contours of their profiles to the manners of their postures, even the timing of their gaits, hinted of the ingredients of their shared parentage that otherwise only could be seen here and there through the most subtlest of things.

"So what's the story, boss?" Kev asked. Despite everything, he could not lose the quick, easy was of an American.

"That's the evening caretaker, kid." Kid was the boss's - Captain Takeshi's - favorite nickname for the foreigner. It was a term of endearment. "He says he found the body at nine."

Kev fumbled again for his notebook and pen.

While Ken asked: "What was he doing here at that time? Still raining wasn't it?"

"Yes, heavily, too." The boss nodded. "Says he comes here at that time to shut the bathroom for the night."

Kev noted the information. "Makes sense. And so he finds the body where?"

The boss thumbed at the opposite end of the tunnel that ran beneath the open air pavilion. There, slumped along the edge between the floor and the wall, was a white nylon tarp whose contours revealed the telltale signs a body lay beneath.

"No blood. The rain could not have washed it away," Kev observed.

The concrete was wet, proof rain flowed through the tunnel.

"Yeah, yeah, the weather fucked up. Washed it away, whatever evidence there was. Kano!" he called into a group of officers who, at the time, were photographing and collecting evidence. "Kano." A sleek, slender man, who looked as if he was in his late teens and not in his late twenties, faced the boss and the detectives.

Kev gave Kano a quick, sharp nod - Kano gave Kev a smile and walked over.

"Yes, sir," he asked with an airy, light voice. "What is it?"

"Pictures, medic."

Medic Kano produced a folder and gave the detective - Kev - the pictures.

"Let's see, here, hmmm."

His partner allowed himself a `hmmm' too and added, as he scanned the pictures: "Another one. Female, age fifteen. Typical high school girl, typical high school uniform."

"We found her ID." Medic Kano continued: "Her purse was not ransacked."

"Again, robbery was not the motive," Ken said freely, taking the pictures away from Kev to examine them himself up close.

"Cause of death is blunt-force head trauma." The unnaturally young appearance of the technician belied Tokyo's brightest forensic mind and its years of experience. "Just like the rest. And just like the rest no evidence of sexual activity."

"No signs of underwear." Kev pointed at the image Ken was studying. "No penetration, no semen, you know, more and more I get the feeling the perp is a woman."

"Serial killers are men, Kevin-san," Kenshin stated reflexively.

"Almost always men." The American passed the folder back from the detective to the medic.

For a moment, for an instant, as the folder went from one hand to the next, their fingers touched. It was a small, simple act - fleeting and passing - and Detective Kenshin and Captain Takeshi just could not see it. But between the Kevin and Kano their mutual contact resonated with the force of an act of physical intimacy.

"My gut tells me it's a woman." Detective Kevin started to pace about the scene as the wheels of his mind began to spin. "Victims are teenage girls right out of high school. Murdered brutally. Undressed and redressed after death. And yet we are shocked by the lack of sexual activity. Maybe we have it wrong. Maybe we're looking for male sexual activity when we should be looking for female sexual activity."

"Wait." It was Detective Kenshin's turn. "This would be his fifth murder. He's been doing this for a while, he's been getting experience. And we know he takes an item of the victim's clothing. And it makes sense that someway, somehow, he uses that item to clean up."

"Hmmm," the bossed nodded, frowning. He was an old, old man into his seventies. Bald but he would have been white-haired. "The kid's idea is interesting. Could be why we're missing the mark - if we keep looking for a man when we should be looking for a woman. Still, I agree with Kenshin, serial killers are men more often than they are women. So, so; he doesn't abuse them when he kills them. At home, when he's alone and safe, then he abuses them with the items he steals."

Kev nodded a sort of `resignation' but added: "Serial killers who collect items, they put their trophies into boxes and hardly, if ever, look at them. Well, hardly, and when they do, every now and then, they look through their collection the way we look through our albums. We don't make out with our pictures, they don't make out with their trophies."

"Granted." Ken could not help but tag onto it a last word. "But we've got a fifth victim killed by blunt-force trauma." He emphasized those worlds, blunt-force, implying that only a man could have been that powerful. "You know, boss, it is the fifth victim. As much as you hate them, you can't keep them away. Reporters."

"I don't want to glorify this son of a bitch," the boss interjected. "And give him the _popularity_ he seeks."

Suddenly Kev was struck by a flash of inspiration and could not help but amend his theory with his own, particular brand of psychoanalysis. "Because at the most fundamental level he is barren and sterile, the male seeks validation through the acknowledgement of actual, physical acts. The male killers boast of their crimes; it gets their names out in public and they feel validated. The female killers, though, are motivated not by ego but by objective; they are the coldest, most-calculating killers."

"And you're point would be?"

"Our killer doesn't want our limelight."

"Ah," Ken protested with a wave of the hand.

By that time the boss and the medic were more than a little bored of the two detectives and their dueling theories and went back to their business.

"You're looking at serial killers like they're sane and logical."

"Yes - remember - _they think they're normal._"

"You're nuts, nuts!" And with that the duel was settled - a draw.

After a brief moment, Medic Kano and the rest of the technicians placed the body within a bag atop a gurney. The team wheeled the remains out of the tunnel into the ambulance. Later, the evening caretaker was escorted into a vehicle whose destination was Omega Squad's headquarters for questioning and fingerprinting. Soon, only Ken, Kev, the boss and two officers were left at the crime scene.

"Let's see. It was raining throughout the day except the afternoon. It was quiet." Kev said.

"Afternoon's when school's let out. Boss, you've called the next of kin, right?" Ken asked.

"Yes," the old man answered, without looking back. "The parents should be at the station."

Ken looked at Kev: "She walks through park alone - she would have been alone - "

"Or she would have been missed. Friends would have looked for her and found her sooner rather than later."

"Yes. She goes into the bathroom and there the killer lays in wait. The report talked about a dent inside a stall that could have been formed by her head. If her head were smashed against it. And blood. Death must have been instant, which meant he had her with him for many hours. He writs and ankles were unbounded; of course she was dead, she was not going anywhere."

"And then what? What does he do with the body for all of that time?"

"I don't know, I just don't know."

"Time passes and it rains. He or she waits to ensure there are no eyes looking - there is no body within park - he or she takes the victim out of wherever she was hid. In the bathroom. In the closets. As soon as it's safe the body's placed out in the tunnel where the water would have washed the evidence away. Then, he or she, leaves."

"But he's not from this area; he's already killed four other people four other places. He's got the remarkable ability to blend into the woodwork. To be in plain sight yet invisible."

"God damned son of a bitch," the boss cured as he was informed a satellite truck reached the park. "They swarm a crime scene like vultures."

The two detectives approached Captain Takeshi as he stood under the arch of the tunnel's entrance communicating via radio with the officers already on-scene with the reporters.

"They smelled blood, kid."

"Wait, boss, maybe we can use them?" Kev emphasized the word `use'.

"What do you mean?"

"Go to the press and tell them _my_ theory. If I'm right, we get leads. If I'm wrong, and the killer's a man, it'll be such a blow to his ego that he'll be forced to speak once and for all."

"And we get solid evidence." The boss nodded, a sort of wry, half-smile came to his face. "Better - even better - I'll say the killer's either a woman _or_ a man unable to sustain an erection. Impotent and taking his frustrations out in this way. Now _that_, kid, is a blow."

The boss had a weird, mean streak that caught everyone off-guard. Everyone except Kevin.

"There's hope for you yet, boss," he said.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Yet against his better judgment Captain Takeshi stood under an umbrella over the pavilion. All around the world was cast amid the spreading void of darkness, the flickering barrenness of shadows. With the neon-electric skyline of Tokyo behind him and before him the trees - rather the disfigured, distorted memory of trees - and with the subtle suggestion of the moon shining through clouds, it could have been a Romantic scene. A dreamscape, beautiful if it were not for the murder that had been performed just a few feet beneath.

Detectives Ken and Kev stood behind the boss looking nervously, wondering anxiously if it was the right thing to do as more and more it became too late to stop. Kev was jotting down a couple of telephone numbers for tips. Ken was going through what he could and what he could not say about the investigation.

Immediately before the crime-fighting trio were the reporter and the cameraman of `Channel 7' news. Behind them was another cameraman wearing an impressively large headphone and a dark, nylon cape. He looked at his watch and tapped at his headset simultaneously - suddenly he crouched, shouted `cue' and began the countdown.

The choreographed response of the entire news crew inspired a dull, fractious joke within the mind of the boss as it seemed to be that those predictable and tiresome creatures were more mechanical than man.

Still, the effect did not endear them; they, who as far as he was concerned, were the equivalent of vultures circling and feasting upon the carnage of inhumanity. In their own, particular way they were worse than the criminals he dealt with on a day-to-day basis. And he was not pleased to be in the position to answer their question. Especially since his superiors would not be aware of it until they turned on their sets and saw him in it - _live_ TV. But if it helped to get answers and solve the crime, one moment of pain could be endured for a lifetime of pleasure.

"Hitten, I am live at the scene at the park. Just a few, short hours ago a worker found a body beneath the park's pavilion. It seems to be another victim matching a peculiar profile. Captain Takeshi, what can you tell us about the victim of this crime?"

The old man raised an eyebrow as he leaned into the microphone.

"I can't give you names because the next of kin have not yet identified the body. And I can't give you specifics because the investigation has not yet concluded. I can tell you the victim was a Japanese female, fifteen years old, black hair, black eyes. And she was dressed in her green and white high school uniform."

"Do you think she could have been abducted after classes ended?"

"I'm not at liberty to say that; we must wait until we gather more evidence from, family, friends, teachers."

"And what can you say about the cause of death?"

"The first impression of our medical technicians is blunt-force trauma to the head."

"Was she abused, sexually, before or after death?"

Again that eyebrow raised - and he stepped back wondering if children might not be hearing this.

"There's no evidence of sexual contact. Of any kind."

* * *

Captain Takeshi's shocked appearance at the blatant sensationalism was broadcasted from the scene of a crime of man to the scene of a crime of nature - into Naraku's office via Kanna's mirror.

"You know, of course, I can't talk about that. We can't talk about facts - and non-facts - regarding impending investigations."

"Any leads, any theories?"

"One wild and crazy idea had been brought up - that the killer could be a woman." - Just by his tone, his manner transforming from stiff-formality to lose-jocularity implied total, personal disbelief at the theory - "But I don't know and I don't speculate any further."

Trapped amid the darkness, no one could have seen the face of spider demon raise an eyebrow. And only the most careful of observers could have heard the lips of the monster issue a deep, resigned sigh. All that could have been deciphered of the mastermind's intentions were encrypted by those eyes - those deep, red eyes - that shut and remained shut.

Kanna flipped the mirror, silencing the interview, and embraced it against her body, her chest. The bright, white light pouring through blanketed her form in its glow and lent her cold, passionless face a demonic forbiddance as it was lit from beneath. Without further ado the silent girl in her silent ways exited the chamber.

"A woman?" Naraku chortled.

The figure who remained - the man dressed in the black ninja uniform - stood by Naraku. Like his counterpart, he retained a youthful face that obscured whatever emotions he could have possessed and masked a great, inhuman age. Were he entirely man he would have died many centuries ago. But as the spider demon's most trusted right-hand man, as the one and only individual who served him _willingly_, his physiology had been altered with the aid of a certain shard of a particular jewel.

"Captain Takeshi has failed for the last time. Perhaps he should be dealt with?" Kohaku suggested.

Naraku was neither standing nor sitting. The shape of his body was not a definite thing and at that stage of his life he did not require furniture to assume whatever posture he wished. He was, however, at the other side of the desk looking as if he were sitting. But behind that, where there appeared to be nothing but darkness and shadow, was that truth into which only Kohaku saw - because Naraku trusted Kohaku - that it was all carefully-constructed, well-organized illusion.

The parts of the monster that retained the proportions of a man smiled and a hand - bone and flesh superficially akin to a hand - reached up onto its chin and scratched it as if in thought.

"This could be interesting," he said. But up close, from Naraku's lips to Kohaku's ears, his voice was not one voice any longer. He had absorbed too many demons and had gotten too powerful to possess one voice. More often that not he controlled its unholy-unison and all of the voices acted together producing a normal, low-sounding tenor. But every now and then he let it slip and uttered sounds that even through whisper could have turned enemies into pallid, quivering shells.

"Hmmm." He thought and the machinations of his mind could be heard along with the breathing of his body that was not coming out of his mouth and the beating of heart that was not coming out of his chest. Those otherwise natural sounds of living biology were coming from elsewhere, from behind what could be seen of the spider demon. "Let it play itself out," he concluded. "If Omega Squad gets too close then we'll send Captain Takeshi a message that'll ring loud and clear."

Kohaku nodded, beaming through the look of his eyes. Naraku schemed like an arachnid spinning its web and it was beautiful, gorgeous to watch.

"And what about your ongoing search for Inuyasha?" the demon asked as his human guise appeared to be retreating into the enveloping void. The limbs, the lower body, the upper chest until, at length, only the head remained. The visage of the face floated as if disconnected.

"I have my two, best hunters tracking him as we speak."

The nothingness surrounding Naraku's head pulsated hinting of larger, unseen designs yet hidden from view.

"_They_ will find Inuyasha and _he_ will do the rest."

Naraku laughed through the shadow as his head was engulfed by the darkness like a flower retreating into its bud.

* * *

A couple, male and female, talking into their own, separate cell phones filed past Inuyasha along the sidewalk in front of an electronics and technology supermarket. The rain stopped but the respite from the storm came too late - almost near eleven - as there were few people out in the city enjoying it. The streets were deserted. And it did not make sense to the half-demon that the two should have been so close as to brush his jacket as they strode by, arm in arm, yet conversing with others. Or could they have been conversing with themselves all along?

He hardly gave it a moment's notice; night always brought the freaks out it seemed and not just the social outcasts. The _other_ outcasts. For when the sun's life giving rays were extinguished by the dead of night and normal, everyday people went to bed and slept, another parallel world emerged. Like the ebb of tides retreating, revealing the bottom of the oceans then and only then was the civilization built by the demons unveiled.

In a sense night was when he was safe and at peril. Naraku, after centuries of plotting and scheming, placed himself atop the apex of that demonic empire, commanding from on high, from where no one, demon or human alike, dared reach let alone imagine its existence. And Naraku was looking for him just as he was looking for his brother and his friends _and her_.

He grunted - at the moment the odd coincidences and ill feelings were quenched yet something aired through the TV sets aroused his attention.

"But, Captain Takeshi, this is the fifth girl to die this year?"

Thanks to his super-human hearing, he sensed what was being said through the glass despite the blasting, maddening techno music played even into that hour.

"Yes, it would appear to be the fifth slaying of a young, teenage girl this year."

"The fifth in a series. Captain Takeshi, the public had a right to know if there's a serial killed on the lose, stalking high school age girls. From what we gather from those close to the families all of the girls were found in their green and while uniforms."

"I would not be too quick to judge - and without rock solid evidence - at this juncture it would be fruitless -"

"Feh!" He grunted and returned to his pacing.

_I must contact Hojo at once_, he thought to himself as he rounded a corner. _I want eyes watching her all the time. All the time._

He stopped at an intersection to wait to cross and spotted that same, weird couple. The male wore bleached hair; the female wore bright-pink spiky-hair and two-toned contact lenses. And there was something peculiar about their ears, something that could not be ignored though they tried to hide it with their cell phones. Wanting to look `normal' himself, just as quickly as he noticed he slowly, smoothly turned his gaze back onto the streets ahead and crossed, marching ever-onward from a simple walk to a brisk jog.

When it was clear Naraku gained too much power demons feared showing themselves openly lest they be consumed by him. Collectively they put aside their differences and created their own, parallel existence between Naraku's and the human's world. To blend into society they formed communities and networks, usually inside well meaning temples, where there would be the equivalents of law and medicine, school and religion.

Marriages would be arranged, ceremonies would be held. The telltale features of demonhood would be excised through infant surgery - and every now and then, if a child was born too monstrous to be let into the world, it would be humanely euthanized to protect the safety and security of all demonkind. Affiliated temples throughout the country and later throughout the world made it possible to cover up for a demon's naturally slow aging process: there demons vanished to and returned from a fifty or a hundred year exile when all humans who might have remembered them would not be alive any longer.

A great many demons emigrated abroad; usually into America where there was plenty of space to be free and open. But Naraku was there, still, always forever there. Nothing in the universe escaped his grasp. He had conquered the demon world and Inuyasha wondered how deep into the human world that spider's web encroached.

That night, along the waterfront district, Inuyasha fled into an old, abandoned warehouse. He scaled a ladder, sprinted the catwalk and reached the upper most portions of the building's rafters. He stood directly under what appeared to be one of many circular ventilation shafts - and he remained silent and still, imagining that for a moment he beheld a fragment of Naraku's next, grand design.

Naraku must have known Kagome existed _in this time._ But though he knew when she was, he did not know where she was. And it would be too exhaustive for him and for his agents to actively seek her - by that era he had too much power and responsibility. The ancient spider was too smart to waste that much time and manpower on a task that would be revenge. It was not his style. Would it not make sense that he let one of his minions loose into the world with explicit orders to kill anyone resembling Kagome's profile?

He crouched and waited, his eyes adjusted and became familiar with the vast, untamed environ. Fifty-feet below the warehouse stared above. Its platforms thick with dust, its shelves decorated with cobwebs. Desolate like a wasteland. To one side were the garage doors where once trucks loaded and unloaded their cargo; to the other side - comprising three stories _within_ the building - were the facilities and office space of the now-defunct Ja-Rin Exporting House.

The doors through which he entered creaked and a pair of interlopers crashed into the building. They split and cased about, one hugging the wall, one lurking through the aisles. The warehouse was unlit but he knew light meant nothing to _those creatures._ Every now and then they looked up - but he was so down, low against the catwalk that he could not be seen.

Inuyasha waited until the interlopers ambled far enough away that _they_ could not see _themselves._ Like a cat he jumped into the vent directly above; like a bullet he pierced into it cleanly, smoothly. He did not even gasp and was thankful neither he nor his clothes touched the sides of the aperture.

And by the silence that echoed Inuyasha knew the unwanted guests were oblivious to what he had done and where he had gone.

Nevertheless, he stayed by the vent with his sword out in his hands, waiting for that sign of danger.

When the feeling passed he crawled deeper through the pitch black passage until it terminated into a cramped little room. He shut the passage and lay against its hatch. Panting and sweating, he rested with his sword between his legs.

It was a close call but he survived and it was over for now. And for now he would be safe. There, amid the refuse of industry, within the chambers carved through unused attic and roof space, Inuyasha was home.

* * *

The air within the bedroom was odd. It was difficult to pinpoint why, though, there was not _a_ reason but _a myriad_ of weird, contradictory impulses. And it was as if his head was burdened with not one but two minds, each vying for control of his every last emotion.

On one level the air was cool - mostly because of the open living room window and the open bedroom door letting the draft inside - on another level the climate was warm, comforting. Maybe it was the smell of the fresh rain it carried, the sense of complete and utter cleanliness. Maybe it was the sense of the security it brought about invoking memories of the past when he was younger and at peace with the world.

Smelling that cool, night air brought it back.

Yes - Zenku remembered - there was a time the world was a small, well-ordered place. A happy place where nothing bad ever happened. For the most part those memories were about him and his parents. It was always about him and his parents walking through the city. His sister just simply did not appear.

He loved it - and it was strange that those peculiar, fragmented visions were more fresh and alive than anything recent.

And then there was the light. The indigo of the alarm clock that glowed upon the titles of the books from shelf to shelf. The gray of the TV set that washed itself into the chamber through the door between the living room and the bedroom. The skyline of the city that shined across the distance.

He sighed, suddenly and unexpectedly relaxed, as he stared, as he looked onward into the infinite. The lights of the buildings looking so far away as if from another world. Tiny little pinpricks of light coming on and off at will. It was better than a million starry-skies and he wondered how a night could be _that_ perfect.

"The sad fact is that these crimes," spoke a man through a heavy, American accent, "have left little evidence about the perpetrator. One would think, whatever this killer is, he _or she_ has almost super-human ability."

Zenku gulped as the memory of what he saw that night returned His eyes blinked, his stomach tightened as his body reacted. He turned aside and his face brushed the back of Kuzen's head, her hair falling into his mouth. The two were together cradled into each other's fetal positions, naked and touching flesh to flesh. And if it was not obvious then it was now: everything about that chamber, its wide, elongated shape, its slim, narrow opening, it was like being inside a womb.

He brought the blanket onto his face and buried his head into his pillow. There was a wonderful contrast between the warmth of the bed - the warmth of his sister - and the cool, night air.

"Which is why we ask," the man with the accent continued, "that any one with any information regarding these serious crimes report what they know to the authorities."

"And what number can the public contact you at, sir?"

Another voice answered, enunciating Omega Squad's tip-line. Although in clear and perfect Japanese, its manner seemed to be utterly familiar with the voice that spoke before.

"Kuzen is not dead but gives death."

He recalled another sick feeling when he noticed _the thing_ inside his pocket. When he saw it - seductive, sideways glimpses of it - as she dropped it within the box. _That box!_ She was always leaving him things, little mangled trinkets dropped here and there for him to find and be shocked by. Almost like a cat dropping `gifts' for its master. And then she took it back into her box never to be seen and known-of again.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way." He whispered as the number broadcasted through the TV settled into his brain. "If only I had been stronger, Kuzen."

He blinked - her hair was out of his mouth, away from his face. She pressed her hand against his lips. Her hand - by god - he was at once aroused and at once repulsed by her hand. The hand that pleasured him and killed those innocent, unsuspecting girls. He grew an erection just feeling that hand, its fingers, touch him.

"Please, don't, don't," he stammered through tears.

"Don't what? Zenku?" she asked - or did she ask?

"Don't forgive your weak brother! The things you do - for me - stop it. Just, stop it."

"My sweet, kind brother. You are mine and I will have you. I will have _all_ of you."

"Is there no end to your love?"

She kissed his lips, forcing her flesh into his.

"You don't need this world. But I need you." She brought his head onto her breasts. "Let me care for you, little brother."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Electric eyes opened and deep, long breaths followed - a stretch, a yawn - Inuyasha blinked and little by little the world came back into focus. He was inside his attic lair, on the floor by the hatch, attacked by the cold, bitter air. The hideaway was and would be always unheated - un-cooled - the price to be paid for complete and total anonymity. It was bright, too, as along the walls of the room the slit windows were aglow with the redness of the predawn sun.

And it was quiet, impossibly quiet.

He stood, holding the scabbard and sword in his left and right hands. The Tetsaiga. Totosai sharpened its blade that way it could be used like an ordinary samurai weapon. Useful through changing times, it was the best of both worlds: able to dispatch enemies with the least amount of unwanted attention _and_ able to wield all of its attacks when necessary.

He walked into the bathroom, a mess of sheetrock and tile. It was supposed to be an abandoned warehouse and the haphazard lair did not escape that unfinished `look'. He splashed water onto his face, into his eyes. He looked at his reflection through the shattered glass of the broken mirror: despite the five hundred years since he met Kagome he looked, more or less, unchanged. Maybe a little older around the eyes. Maybe. Demons did not age as fast as humans but half-demons aged twice as fast as full-demons. One feature _was_ different: he kept his hair shoulder length and spiky because it masked his ears.

Finished, relaxed, he donned a baseball cap and another, red jacket - he possessed a closet full of red jackets and black outfits, endlessly repeating the same uniform time after time.

Inuyasha was momentarily safe-and-sound. The thugs that followed him into the warehouse, who or what ever they were, had not been smart enough to locate the entrance of his den. Nevertheless, just by observing him entering, that simple small act lead invariably into danger. Even if the two _were not_ demons it lead inexorably into disaster. Naraku's influence extended, however marginally, into the human world and he was not beneath exploiting zombies, drug-addicted and mindless, using them to do his dirty work. _He_ knew what _they_ knew thus he felt it would be necessary to find a new, private lair and soon, too, he imagined there would be little time.

Inuyasha understood too well the art of blending, of hiding out in the world. He had spent the better part of his life keeping away from demons and humans alike who hated him _because_ he had been born different. Then and now he kept a low profile but this time it was for another reason all together: to protect Kagome from what contact with him wrought. Naraku's eyes watched everything; with agents and minions that patrolled everywhere throughout the city and the country. No one could be trusted except, of course, friends whose families he knew and protected for centuries and other demonic allies whose identities like his own were tightly-guarded secrets.

And there was a time he could have been allied with his brother, Sesshoumaru. But after the war, when he could not find Rin - whom he kept alive through less-than-natural means - he, too, vanished. Maybe he grew tired of the world demons and humans destroyed and followed her out of it; maybe he dwelt within it, still, hoping for her return and searching for her spirit among the land of the living. But for the past sixty almost seventy years he battled without him, not that even when they were together they were the best of friends. They had two, very different views about the world and how to deal with it and they clashed with each other more often than with their enemies.

He was alone, that was that, and he functioned well alone. He could have been happy alone were it not for Kagome. If they got anywhere near each other it would be doom. In feudal Japan he was free to do what he wanted when he wanted. But in modern Japan he was restricted. Activity curtailed. Movement chained. Thanks to his appearance.

Eyes could be tinted, ears could be cropped, claws and teeth could be filed. Tails could be amputated. And other, subtle imperfections could be masked through surgery. But he would not be changed to conform to general notions of beauty and desirability. Accepting himself the way he was had taken a great deal of time and courage all of which he had gained from his love of Kagome and her love of him. Now the things about himself she fought him to accept were the very things that impeded him from saving her.

_Kagome!_ he thought and sighed.

Inuyasha produced a cell phone. It was an instrument Shippo created and guaranteed to be untraceable. From memory, for it was imperative not to leave records of any kind, he dialed an automated answering service through which he communicated with Hojo.

He checked and found there were no messages - the last he heard of Hojo it was about Kagome not coming to meet him for a movie-date but he checked with her parents and she was at the temple sick, uneasy.

"Hojo, if you watched the news last night you know about a killer who's stalking girls fitting Kagome's description. The killer's after Kagome - _I know it_ - keep your eyes on her.

Don't let her out of your sight. But - just do what you do. It's important. Also, I'm changing my address, I'll keep you informed."

He removed the cell phone.

The half-demon knew Hojo's ancestors and, mostly because of Kagome's insistence, kept close ties with them through the years. As with Miroku's lineage, familial relationships were passed down from one generation to the next. After Kagome - the Kagome of the past - was no longer a part of his life he was comforted by the idea that _in the future_ they were fated to meet again. But when Naraku's power became a thing to be avoided, his human allies - and Hojo's family in particular - became his best, most direct link to the Kagome of the future.

Of course, he did not tell his friends what he knew about the future - really, after that day when Kagome did not return and he could not go through the well, what he knew about the future was painfully very little. And he did not tell Hojo just what was happening inside the temple. What he said was that he promised her father to protect her and watch her. But, for obvious reasons, he could not be following her. That was why he asked him to keep an eye on her when she was at school. When she was not at home.

Inuyasha knelt by the hatch and listened - the warehouse was so cavernous, _so empty_, the slightest noise within seemed to be impossibly magnified by the silence that enshrouded its facilities like a kind of fog. He opened the vent. He crawled through the passage on hands and knees, his weapon clutched by the grip of his teeth. He reached the end of the tunnel and saw from above the catwalks and the platforms of the interior of the building below.

If those two thugs were there he was going to deal with them.

* * *

"Alright, alright already, you don't like my theory, I get that, but what's yours? Just because most serial killers have been men does not make this serial killer a man too especially when there's no evidence to prove it."

"The evidence? The evidence is the young, teenage girls killed all over Tokyo!" said Detective Ken. He tapped the map unfolded over the table. There, scattered about the schematic diagram of Japan's capital, were fifteen colored dots. From one to five, they were numbered by the order of their discovery. The five black dots - locations of bodies. The five green dots - locations of schools. The five white dots - locations of homes. There seemed to be no consistent, logical pattern - a mathematician had been inquired and concluded the dots did not extrapolate a center. "All of them killed by blunt-forced trauma. Quick and dirty. The victims did not see it coming."

Detective Kev stood, planting his tap onto the map. "My point exactly. These victims did not feel threatened by their killers - until too late, if ever. What would be less threatening for a female of that age? A man or a woman? And what about the lack of sexual contact?"

"Meaningless." Glaring, rising a little, Ken pounded at the map. "The killer's taken items from the victims. At home he can use them whatever way -"

Captain Takeshi frowned at the thought.

"The facts are: no penetration, no semen. And that's not all of it. The victim's bodies suffered trauma _after_ death. Medics Kaede and Kano prove the damage suffered to the ears was post-mortem. Now, a man may kill his victim to sex her before or after, but once he's done he's done. This killer went out of her way to scar the body after death."

"So? So - he's nuts," the boss added.

"All murderers, by definition, are nuts. But this one's special - I think - she's motivated by jealousy."

Kenshin grunted his displeasure and flung his hand about as he sat.

"The killer is female and older than the victims. Were she school-aged, she just would not have the time to be all over the place like this map suggests. No. She waits, she watches with infinite patience. She picks the victims well - the girls that arouse the rage within. Maybe, when she was younger, all the pretty girls thought she was ugly. Maybe the rest of her school mates treated her like that too. But now that she's older and wiser, she uses what power she's got to seek revenge."

"Revenge against the pretty girls. Kid, it sounds like the plot of a half-baked detective novel." Captain Takeshi drummed his fingers across the map; he was starting to understand Detective Kevin's theory. "Markus, Kevin Markus, _remember,_ you're a cop not a pedestrian psychiatrist."

Kev bowed and sat, arching his back against his chair.

Looking at his detectives, Takeshi - Captain of the Omega Squad - sighed. Though they had different fathers and different cultures, they were cops. And besides that, they shared many of the same personality traits - _especially stubbornness_ - and even a few, physical features here and there were remarkably identical. "I'm sorry, truth is there's just very little evidence. It's almost as if - demons - were involved."

Kev laughed: "Demons, boss?"

At that moment Medics Kaede and Kano appeared - the technicians were talking to themselves about their cases.

"I know you're not going to like it, Kid, but you're going to accept it. Until we get _something_ we work with Ken's theory."

"OK." Kev sat upright. "What about increasing the patrols about the schools?"

"My superiors will not agree to it," Captain Takeshi answered.

Kevin's eyes refocused away from the boss to the medics. While no one watched - no one but the American - the young, almost boy-like Kano tapped his wrist. The detective smiled and turned back toward Kenshin and Takeshi - but the boss left.

"What? What happened?"

"Earth to Kevin!" Ken knocked at Kev's clean-shaven head. "The higher-ups think it'll start a panic. If parents see cops patrolling their schools they will get nervous."

"The killer will get nervous, too," Kev countered, standing. "There is nothing like a nervous killer."

Ken grunted. Kev looked back - the medics were gone.

"You know, my Ramen is DOA. There's hot water in the break room, isn't there?"

Kev jogged across the hallway into the break room beyond the front desk. Ken noticed it - but did not speak it - that his brother left his bowl of Ramen atop the desk _unopened._

"Oh, heh, there you are," Kev whispered, his English slow and deliberate.

"Kevin-san." Kano greeted his friend with a sly restrained smile.

Without wasting another moment they hugged and kissed.

Kano was the first, real friend he knew in Japan. They met while at a language school: Kano was learning English and he was learning Japanese. Together they taught each other things like all of the bad words and vulgar expressions that would not be discussed in the classroom. But that child-like behavior was just a mask for a deep and growing bond of affection that otherwise lacked a way to express itself. Until that day Kev showed Kano kanji he wrote: it was supposed to be `I love you' but how badly his awkward and untrained brushstrokes mangled the words he did not know. Yet - as they sat side by side - they blushed like kids and it felt alive to be hugging suddenly, unexpectedly kissing.

"_You're so beautiful Kano Sozaburo_," he remembered he whispered into his friend's ear that day after that slight and fleeting intimacy. "_There's just something_ other _about you, like you're not a part of this human world_."

That was the start of the love affair. A love affair consummated through secret gestures and coded words. For five years they invented all sorts of indirect ways to make love to one another distantly anonymously out in the open. Every now and then they shared heavy, intimate encounters that yet did not go beyond hugging and kissing as Kev did not go faster than Kano wanted - it was clear that his lover had had past negative experiences and he wished to be completely and totally understanding.

"I missed you." Kano's head leaned against Kevin's shoulder - the medic's light brown mane brushed against the detective's hairless face.

"I missed you, too, _a lot_." Kev inhaled Kano's scent - he loved the feel of that hair against his face. "Let's get together again."

"Yes," he said drawing back yet holding onto his lover's elbows looking into his eyes. Kano appeared to be like a boy in his teens and not a like man much older than Kevin. "I need it, I want it."

"Tonight? My Home?"

"Tonight - Kaede and I work tonight - heh heh, we've got autopsies to start, reports to finish."

"Sounds like a blast, heh heh. What about tomorrow night?"

He smiled almost tearing. "I want to trust you."

He hugged tentatively yet tightly. "You can trust me - I know - I know, _this,_ must be kept secret."

"Yes and not just _this._" He kissed his lover's lips, cheek and bit - lightly, lovingly - against the naked, soft flesh of his ear. "A movie then a walk."

"You _foxy_ thing." Kano blushed at Kev's words. "To see those eyes, to hear that laugh." Kevin kissed him and rubbed against the side of his head about his ear. His ear. W_hy did it feel rough as if there was a scar?_

Kano backed away a bit.

"Tomorrow night - anyway - I have to go."

"I know." Kevin tried to reach to touch that face but resisted the temptation. "Be safe, Kano Sozaburo." He watched as the man he loved walked out of the room.

* * *

Peeking through the vent's aperture, Inuyasha could not see them. Were he an average, ordinary mortal simply by the looks of it he would be led to believe they were gone. He seemed to be surrounded by emptiness but he knew better - he smelt them their trace weak yet detectable.

With a fearsome cry he surged, jumping from the ceiling to the floor of the Ja-Rin warehouse, landing feet-first the scabbard tucked into his waist, the sword gripped by his hands.

"Well, well, well" a female voice taunted from the cover of the aisles. "Look who decided to drop by."

"We didn't expect you to show this soon, Inuyasha," another voice, male, jeered. "It's almost like you've grown a spine."

Inuyasha growled, brutal fangs utterly prominent, and stepped aback. The female and the male approached from opposite directions; they must have thought they could have lured him into a trap. But he was not up for playing games that day - he was in the mood to destroy them.

By the light that filtered through the building's windows, the half-demon saw the two thugs for the first time. They were twins: the woman with short, spiky hair tinted pink, the man with shoulder length, stringy hair bleached blinding white. Wearing denim and leather, they adorned their bodies with various, masochistic elements. And they were armed, just like he was armed, with swords.

"Inukotsu and Kakotsu," he sneered. "And you want to speak of cowardice!" He lunged at the female, erratically and violently swinging his sword whose every stroke was met by hers. The sound of the metal-on-metal action was furious and loud. The cutting of the blades sent currents of air about to prick and flutter the cobwebs.

Inukotsu was about to strike with a kick just as her brother Kakotsu ran into the scene. But Inuyasha was faster than them and withdrew. He stepped aback far enough to be safe from their weapons but close enough to be near their bodies and attack. He elbowed the male's ribs and with the same arm, the same hand, beat into his body as if it were a rag doll.

"If I didn't know better you'd almost pass for human!" the half-demon scoffed as he, again, lunged after the woman. And, again, his strikes were met, each and every one of them, by her blade before any contact could be made.

There was a great deal of rage within Inuyasha - controlled, harnessed rage - more than the last time he encountered the Kotsu Twins decades ago. He did not think Inukotsu noticed; if she did she did not realize how he maintained that strength. Inukotsu did not fight for what she loved and therefore could not understand the source of Inuyasha's strength.

She was a lackey of Naraku and like all of his lackeys, except one, she fought for him not because she believed in him or in his cause but because she feared him. All of them feared him. Despised him. His children, too, wanted to be free of the spider demon.

But Inuyasha's motives were pure and possessed the power to call upon inner reserves so deep and so bottomless that he could be unwavering forever simply because he was fighting for Kagome.

He was driven by single-minded determinism and showed it by eerie silence. He let the female expend her energy, time and brainpower, coming up with cheap insults. He knew how much the taunts distracted the taunter having used the tactic himself when he was younger. But since then he learned the best fighters keep their mouths shut. Besides, he did not want to insult her, he wanted to kill her.

And he did not want to fight the twins together, rather, it would be easier to attack them one at a time. Part of the plan was to force Inukotsu to retreat out of the warehouse into yard behind the building. The other part of the plan was to beat up Kakotsu every time he threatened to be near. She might sense the danger, but he was not the brightest swordsman in Japan and the half-demon hoped he would be oblivious to the danger until too late.

Again, Kakotsu struggled and lunged at Inuyasha. Again, the half-demon averted disaster - by jumping up toward a raised, makeshift platform and jumping down behind Kakotsu. The demon was fast and able to dodge the Tetsaiga but the swinging of the sword proved to be distraction only and Inuyasha pounded into his chest, his ribs. Kakotsu coughed blood and staggered back onto a pillar. Inuyasha did not have a moment to lose: he jumped onto the platform - missing Inukotsu's surge - then jumped into the fray. He resumed the duel, making her loose ground, forcing her to retreat through the doors at the back of the warehouse where out in the open he could do a real, demonic attack.

Just then, before either of them knew it, they were enveloped by the twilight. It was a bitter, cold morning, typical of autumn and unlike yesterday the climate was dry with gray and cloudy skies. It was not blue but blinding bright white compared to the environment within the Ja-Rin warehouse.

Inuyasha and Inukotsu circled each other, keeping enough distance between them and the building. He aimed the weapon at her who then aimed her weapon at him. Their blades me and for the first time he was dragged aback by the force. A surge of demonic power followed - his eyes seemed to be changing from yellow to red - and with a yell that could have broken stone he flung her away. She soared and fell against her back, her sword slipping through her grasp - perhaps he would not have to use the trick, after all, perhaps a quick slice through the neck would be enough.

But just at that moment of victory Kakotsu emerged and struck Inuyasha's sword with such strength that it, too, was thrust out of his hand. Enraged, the half-demon grasped the man's wrists as if to crush them. For endless moments they were locked, virtually hand-in-hand, pacing a small, tight circle vying for control of the weapon. Suddenly Inuyasha let go and tore into Kakotsu's neck. A gush of blood sprayed into his face and blinded him as his enemy fell away through his arms.

Inukotsu screamed at the sight.

Without another thought Inuyasha dug his hands into Kakotsu's chest, splitting it apart. The demon collapsed _still alive_ and gasping but it was impossible to get air into and out of his lungs that like the rest of his innards were fatally exposed. The creature formed a pool of blood upon impact with the concrete of the yard and then and there died.

Inukotsu cursed through tears. Inuyasha flung away form his face streaks of Kakotsu's blood and shouted an incantation of his own. The blood formed parallel blades through the air as they rushed toward Inukotsu and she struck at them with her weapon.

Inuyasha retrieved his sword. Armed, again, he ran after her. But she was retreating toward a manhole that she and her brother opened the night before. And she jumped right into it.

* * *

Zenku though himself guilty for oversleeping until he remembered he dropped out of school ages ago. It was just that the sounds of the children filling past the apartment - the children and their songs - that brought him back into that time when he should have been but was not happy.

And then the merriment passed away and then the sounds of the city emerged into life echoing about the bedroom. That, with the sun shining through the clouds and the air wafting through the windows, induced yet another flashback. Of being a child, alone, before school was an idea. Of thinking the universe to be carefree and open into the infinite. It was the thrill of freedom.

What he would have done to get back that childhood and cleanse himself forever of those damn, detestable urges.

But Kuzen was right, it was too late for him and he could not go back no matter how much he wanted, no matter how hard the tried to fool himself.

At last he sat, breaking the intimate closeness he shared with his sister - he bid her good-morning and kissed her cheek but she did not reply.

On he went, though, naked into the living room and turned up the TV's volume - the channel was replaying portions of that interview with Captain Takeshi.

He turned into the bathroom, washed his face and looked at his image through the mirror. He appeared to be no different than yesterday yet he seemed to be ages older and wiser. _Could there be anyone in the world attracted to such a face?_ He was not displeasing, he was sure of it, but he grew bored of seeing the same thing, over and over, static and unchanging.

He turned back into the living room and for a moment peered into the bedroom through the crack of the door. The mattress was empty; his sister must have gotten up and left in that short space of time he had been away, eyes-averted. But she could not be too far away, he reasoned, for he saw _that box_ upon the bed and it was open

He looked away into the TV.

Upon the screen was the image of that American whose fragmented Japanese he had heard the night before. Now there was a face attached to the voice. Clean-shaven and youthful, the foreign cop looked familiar except that his eyes were not sunken in - as his were - and that his smile was bright _and genuine._ He rocked back and forth as he watched thinking such a man could get any woman he wanted.

And then the image of the victim was broadcasted - not the image of her death but the image of her life through a yearbook photograph.

"The victim's identity was made public upon notification of next of kin. Sonji Sakano, age fifteen, was found last night under the pavilion of J. J. Hideki Park by a groundskeeper. Her cause of death was blunt-forced trauma to the head. Captain Takeshi would not link her death to that of a series of other, brutal slayings."

One by one pictures of Kuzen's previous, `known' victims appeared onto the screen, their names beneath their images.

"So many, so many, Kuzen!"

"The police ask that if you know any thing about these crimes that you contact them at Omega Squad through the tip-line number -"

Zenku lost track of how many girls ran into his sister. He doubled over, clutching into his stomach, crying and weeping, as he uttered mantras under his breath until the swell of emotion subsided. It killed him to think the families that would not have them anymore. He could see little brothers wondering where their big sisters were and who would be there to care for them as Kuzen cared for him. He could put himself in their position because for so long he did not have his sister as through she were dead too.

It was not supposed to be that way, but what could he do, what could he do?

Where was his sister? Where was she? Always vanishing at times like that between discontinuities. He knew she was there, he could feel her there, but she liked to be hiding.

How like a cat she was, jealous and possessive, fiercely independent.

It struck him that words alone - and certainly words from him - would not be enough. But if he could get the cops to speak with her _sternly_ she would be responsive. She would be afraid, scared straight into stopping. That was the way to save her from herself! But how to arrange the encounter? How to do it without saying too much and being anonymous?

Of course, that number. That number the cops left for clues. If he called and said a few unimportant things - nothing that could be incriminating but something that could be used through interrogation - the experience of being the object of suspicion just might scare her from ever trying to kill again.

He stared at the phone that black and white model upon the table. Why did he hesitate? Why did he cringe at the though of it? The thought of mad Kuzen. Could he call the cops right then and there with her inside the apartment?

He reached for the phone, his hands shaking, his fingers trembling.

_Oh, officer, I saw Sonji speaking with this woman inside the park. She looked dangerous._

It would be such a simple, little thing to do.

_I asked around and I learned her name is Kuzen. She lives at this address - yes - at that Apartment H. Oh, I'm sure she didn't have anything to do with Sonji's death, but maybe this Kuzen saw something. Maybe she knows something. You know what I mean._

It would be perfect. Get Kuzen into the station to be interrogated by the cops. Scare her into quitting that _hobby_ of hers.

With renewed purpose he reached for the phone - but wait - he could not do it while at home while she -

But it was too late to be strategizing for at that moment, at that instant the telephone rang.

* * *

Inuyasha looked into the manhole. It was dark and shadowy, its depth shallow and little more than twenty-feet deep. Rainwater flowed through its base. He could not see but he could hear the splashing of Inukotsu's feet as she retreated further into the maze of the tunnel-work.

He killed one of two, the weakest of the Kotsu Twins, but as long as the stronger remained _alive_ it would be too great a threat.

When he thought the coast was clear he entered down into the manhole's shaft and shut above its heavy, iron lid. He did not jump, he descended its imbedded rung ladder from its tip to its base. There, at the end, he eased into the waters. It would be impossible to walk through the tunnels at a normal, steady pace and not make a sound. The sloshing of his feet through the rainwater would both announce his advance and muffle her position. Instead he treaded by lifting his feet into and out of the current advancing only though long, deliberate strides. The method proved to be considerably slow but it worked and he found Inukotsu's trail.

He was surprised she was not attacking him inside the tunnels. Maybe she was leading him into a trap but he did not sense other demons. Maybe she was shocked by the death of her brother and did not know what she was doing or where she was going but that, too, did not make sense. He opted for another theory, a mix of the two: she was shocked and was going back into Naraku's lair hence leading him into a trap if he followed.

Thankfully the tunnels sloped upward and after a while the current dried - Inuyasha was free to be as fast as he wanted.

Up and up the tunnels climbed - was he below ground any more? He could not tell. It was not a sewer - it was too bright and too clean to be that - instead the passages appeared to be conduits of massive communication wires. It collected rainwater only because of yesterday's storm and not because it was intended to be an auxiliary sewer. Naturally, what it carried meant it could not hold a lot of fluid and the passages were made to be sloped, getting steeper the closer it reached into the harbor, letting gravity transport the water from one place to another.

And then he stopped. The air was warm and reeked with Naraku. The stench of it was impossibly, unbearably powerful and he gasped. Even about those parts of Tokyo he knew to be strong with the ancient spider, the aura was not _that_ strong. Could it be the universe was playing a game of tit-for-tat? Naraku had discovered Inuyasha's lair; had Inuyasha found Naraku's lair?

He unsheathed his sword and approached into a sideway passage that emptied into a parallel tunnel taller and wider than the rest of the tunnels. To the left and to the right the passage extended infinitely into oblivion - a sound was coming out of those depths but the source was so far away as to be invisible. To the front, along the floor, were tracks that appeared to be for trains. That was that, he realized, he was amid the city's subway, a portion of it that looked very clean and very new.

Without another thought he sprinted across the tracks onto the platform. All along the way, mixed within the gray, stony material of the tracks, were traces of things that once had been alive. Bones, pelts of dusty, matted fur, even the remains of roaches. Nothing, it seemed, survived that miasma.

Inuyasha looked at his hands for a moment - they felt funny and he thought he might have cut himself. But that was not it - when he dug into Kakotsu's chest he must have mangled off a claw. It did not matter, it grew back and did not hurt anymore through the throbs of adventure.

Atop the platform an archway _beckoned._ Beyond it stairs ascended above and sounds echoed below - through the shadows and the darkness it appeared to be leading up a hundred feet without rest. With his sword gripped by his hands he stood at the foot of the steps just as a train sped through the tunnel. It raced at breakneck speed and blasted its horn but he was not distracted. His eyes were too focused upon that tiny, almost imperceptible pinprick of light that shined at the head of the stairs.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The phone rang - once, twice - and before it sounded again Detective Ken answered. "Yes, Omega Squad, hello?"

"Ken." It was Captain Takeshi, shades of despondency inflecting his accent. "Any progress with those reports?"

"The medics' reports?" he asked, fumbling through the documents about the desktop. "Nothing yet," he sighed, rapping his fingers and leaning back. "Actually, I'd like to speak with the medics, but they've been called to a case."

"Yes, yes, I remember, a Sigma Squad case."

The old man paused; through the background several angry voices could be heard arguing.

"You don't need me to tell you the brass wasn't pleased with the stunt we pulled yesterday. With the media."

"I - I know - boss," Ken bowed his head and sounded apologetic.

Captain Takeshi chuckled; a tiny iota of a laugh passed his lips just for no other reason but to assure his detective things would be all right.

"Progress, detective. Progress." Again he paused - the background grew utterly, unnervingly quiet - and he confessed almost as if to crime: "We've been getting tips."

"I was about to ask." He stat up, suddenly, more alert now than earlier. "What kind of tips?"

"The bad kind."

"Typical, boss."

Again he reclined and the creak of the chair echoed into the telephone.

"Is everything OK boss?"

"Yeah, it'll be OK. Just get to work. I'll be down after my talking too."

And without a good-bye Captain Takeshi hung up.

Detective Ken stared at the telephone a moment and returned it to its stand. Again rapping his fingers, tapping his palms onto the table, he eyed the maps. _Progress, work!_ he thought as he finger-traced lines through dots across the maps, trying to glean a connection, any connection, between the victims. Any thing that could help pinpoint a killer. But the maps would not yield their secrets and he turned from them to the paperwork. From his left to his right were envelopes containing scattered pictures of grizzly scenes and equally gruesome medical autopsy reports and folders holding witness statements covering each and every one of the five murders. But that, even that, did not tell him more than what he knew and -

Just at that moment Detective Kev returned.

"Hot water, little bro?" he said, dryly, without giving Kevin a sideways glance.

"Oh, heh heh, forgot it, didn't I?" he said, faintly recalling the business with the Ramen.

"Don't go back for it," Ken waved his hand to get him to sit. "You have work to do, Kevin-san."

"Yes, big bro," he frowned. Sitting, thumbing through paperwork he asked: "What did I miss?"

"Just the boss getting the shaft." Kevin nodded. "Earth to Kevin," he leaned into his brother's ear, "don't loose focus. Understand? This is more important than your, personal, relationship. You know, don't you, how much more important?" He stopped, staring into his brother's eyes, and whispered: "You two can be fired. It's against policy. It's not as accepted _here_ as it is _there._"

"I know, trust me, I know." He opened a folder, skimmed it and shut it. Smiling, he added - also through whisper - "You're right, it's not the time or the place. I'll be careful, you know, I'll be careful. But you know, too, that I _love_ him and we see little of each other."

"Take it easy," Ken squeezed Kev's shoulder. "For the good of both of you."

"You're all right with it, aren't you?" he asked, looking with tears welling within his eyes, clutching not Kenshin's arm but the sleeve of his arm.

Ken nodded, looking as if he were about to speak - but did not for a brief yet endless moment as far as Kev was concerned.

"I'm - I'm OK with it - outside of the office - I'm OK with it."

Ken sighed and leaned back, again, looking as though he might add a thought and, again, did not.

"Alright, alright, enough touchy-feely crap." Kev spoke in clear, precise English. "What do we know? What do we know? Inside these files are the clues that lead us to the killer. We have to find them." At once he cleared the tabletop of a nearby desk with the swipe of an arm. "Crime-solving, it's an art form, like, like, sculpture."

"Sculpture?" Ken wheeled his cranky, squeaky chair by the desk. "What did they teach you in America?"

Detective Kev laughed and continued: "We've been given a block of marble; most of it is junk and unsightly. Yet, inside that rock is a _David_ dying to break free. Our killer waiting to emerge. If we just chip away at the crap that doesn't belong." Atop the cleared-up desk he spread the photographs of a crime scene and the contents of an autopsy report. "Let's look at the evidence and decide _if it's relevant._ The pattern of where the victims lived and schooled - doesn't exist - where they lived and schooled were random because _the victims were random._ Let's forget it."

Detective Ken grunted; he folded his arms and watched his partner theorize.

"But, where they were found, that gives us clues. Look." He spread the maps upon the clutter of the documents. "Your green and white dots clutter; it's your black dots that form a line. Not a terribly straight line but a line nevertheless. Our killer walks the streets of Tokyo about the vicinity of that line."

He added to the drama by running his finger cross the line - imaginary for it was not yet drawn - outlined by the black dots that pinpointed the crime-scenes.

"He or she's _familiar_ with these places else why risk committing murder in public _and unknown_ areas?"

"Our killer knows these locations, intimately, knows just where to kill and dump the bodies. Kev, look," seeing it unexpectedly, he stood and traced figures about with his finger. "If we connect a green dot with its corresponding white, dot, it forms lines that cross the line of the black dots. As he walks to and from, _he runs across the girls._" Kenshin was impressed by the insight: "Art. We should be looking around where the black line starts and ends."

"Exactly." Kevin tapped the maps then put his hands around his back. "We can't patrol the schools - the guys above won't let us - but we can patrol that line."

His partner grunted and nodded then asked: "What about the photographs and autopsies? And the witness statements? They don't matter, do they? They didn't see the crime, they stumbled into the scene after the fact. But there must be something about the killer himself that he leaves behind -"

"DNA, you mean?" The American shook his head. "But there's no DNA."

The Japanese rubbed his chin in thought. "No DNA. What motivates him? Makes him kill?" He looked at the pictures of the bodies, of the wounds, that seemed to be speaking through a morbid, fatal whisper. "It must be there. But what is it?"

"Passion? Vengeance? Random acts of vengeance on random people?"

* * *

"Zenku?" The voice was soft yet deliberate with syllables slithering like liquid silk. Even the crackle of the telephone could not break the bone-chilling spell of the unearthly voice. "You didn't come to work yesterday."

"Um, um, er, it's you? Isn't it? _It's you!_" Zenku's hands shook, the handset tapping against his face. He switched hands but the tapping did not abate. _It's him!_ he kept thinking again and again.

"Yes, it's _me_. You didn't come to work yesterday. Why didn't you come to work yesterday? Were you a naughty boy? Kuzen?"

He gulped: "I - had - technical difficulties."

The voice on the other end of the line laughed and just the sound and the image it conjured up made him shiver.

"I - I - I wanted to come."

"Heh, heh, heh. You wanted to come. But didn't you come? Make your mess? You can't control yourself, can you? You need those pretty young girls. You need their cunts, you want their cunts."

Zenku was speechless. When the voice chose to speak in that dirty, creepy voice it amplified the realization of his corrupt and tainted soul. It was like a verbal mirror of his distorted and disfigured visage.

"Didn't you just want to stick that cock of yours into that cunt you felt last night? Oh, that look in your eyes - when you felt up the poor, dead girl's skirt - tell me, was she wet down there? Wet like you like it?" Was there no corner of hell those eyes could not see? "Poor Kuzen. Your sister works hard to keep you out of trouble. Why is she wasting her time trying to help you Maybe - " he paused, the sound of something like his body reclining into his chair could be heard sharply and distinctly. "Maybe I should take her back -"

"No, no, please, Mr. Onigumo!" He fell onto his knees, almost doubling-over with pain. "I'll do better, I promise, _I promise!_ I'll be a good boy, Mr. Onigumo. Don't take her away, I can't live without her."

"Heh, heh, heh. _I know that_. Kuzen, heh, heh, heh." The cackle had a weird, wet slurp mid-syllable like a madman. "I don't think you know how much she loves you. I thought not having her through all of that time that you'd appreciate her. But you don't. It's like _she doesn't exist_ because you just want those cunts, ram that cock into those throats, come all over those faces. Heh, heh, heh. Hell, you're not even dressed, are you? Disgusting! What girl wants a flabby old body like that? At least you can keep it covered!"

"I'll dress, Mr. Onigumo." He did not know if Onigumo was his name, it did not seem to be enough of a name for a creature _like that._

"Zenku - remember -"

At once Zenku gasped. Already on the floor, on his knees, he reached blindly, frantically letting the telephone fall and tumble. He fell onto his face as images of inhuman fear and cruelty came into the light of his mind - rather - emerged out of the darkness of his subconscious. He looked at his hands, mangled and arthritic, the blood returned; it was there, always and forever there. All the water of the world could not wipe it clean.

"No - no - I couldn't have!" Out of breath, he struggled as the reality of things became unbearable.

"Oh, yes, _yes,_ yes you could have," said the voice through the handset where it lay upon the floor just under the window.

"Please, Mr. Onigumo -" he was turning white at the look of terror of those eyes he was seeing inside his head. Human eyes, entirely, female eyes whose life was slowly ebbing into death. And again he looked at his hands. "Please, Mr. Onigumo, I'll do anything. Anything! I can't bear it -"

"Forget -"

And with that one, single word the universe ended.

* * *

Medics Kaede and Kano arrived at the gated rear of the Ja-Rin warehouse, parking the unmarked vehicle by the building's fence. The warehouse itself was large - which was not unusual - what was unusual though was its age. It had been built before the war and despite its location escaped destruction.

The import, export business thrived into the early fifties until the owner, a mysterious and enigmatic Sesshoumaru Taisho, vanished after his wife's death - it was rumored that the woman was very much unnaturally aged while the man was almost womanly in beauty and figure. Ever since it was abandoned yet it escaped falling into government hands. Issues of finances were not transparent but someone, somehow, was still paying the property taxes and maintenance fees.

The police could not contact the benefactor - presumed to be an extant member of the Taisho family - and were unwilling to enter the building without permission. They were willing, though, to pry the gates and swarm the rear parking and loading docks. It was out in the open-air the scene of the crime and the location of the body.

As the medics approached, their ID's dangling by their necks, they were met by Detective Hideki Oji of Sigma Squad. He was the man always sent to investigate the weird, bizarre homicides. And by all measure what had been reported by a local deliveryman was weird and bizarre.

"According to the witness," he started, escorting the medics deep into the crime-scene, "he saw _someone_ and thought it could be a homeless man asleep but it just didn't seem to be right." The concrete sloped into the area where a white sheet, held by four, large rocks, covered the victim. "The figure was too still, too mangled, those were his words," he tapped onto his notebook and flipped its cover shut. "He eased through the gap within the gate you two passed into, got close and saw it, and fled. Almost passed out."

At that juncture the detective and the medics twisted through a perimeter of yellow `caution' tape and stood foot-to-tarp.

"This won't look pretty," said Detective Hideki. He crouched toward a corner of the tarp. He uncovered the body and was surprised neither Kaede nor Kano flinched but, then, those two were said to be the best in the city.

What lay beneath the blanket was what used to be a man. The figure was adorned by an immense, bloody gash along the torso starting at the chest stopping at the waist, exposing innards and entrails parts of which were splattered against the pavement. The wound itself was shredded and torn as if by claws.

"Incredible," uttered Medic Kaede. She produced a digital camera and photographed the mangled remains. "Looks like an animal did it, detective."

"Yes, they appear to be claw marks." Medic Kano held a ruler against the wound while the gloved, female technician took snapshot after snapshot. "Deep and triangular marks."

"It's everyone's first impression," the officer said. He let the tarp fall away from the body and secured it giving the medics the space to do their job.

"Still - isn't it more than a little improbable?" Medic Kaede questioned. "The type of animal that could have made these wounds would have to be very large. Lion, tiger - bear? - I can't think of anything else large enough with the right sized claws."

"And that's the situation. We're thinking if it was an animal that maybe it was held inside the warehouse. Maybe it got loose -"

"Have you been inside the building?" Kaede asked.

Kano looked up from the victim to the detective.

"We're trying to get permission - warrants - but that's slow going. There's a door," he said, pointing with his thumb into the line of the garage doors. "And another at the other side of the building. It was ajar and we've got folks poking their heads into it but we can't see a thing. Ah - I almost forgot - the strangest part of this whole mess is _that_."

He directed a very curious Medic Kano away from Medic Kaede and the body. He uncovered another, small tarp.

"We found it by the victim."

Beneath the white, plastic cover was the sword Kakotsu tried to use against Inuyasha.

"If it had been an animal that attacked him and if it had been sudden, unexpected, it is easy to understand him using what ever weapon was on hand at the time. But, people don't carry around weapons _like that_ anymore. And I'm no expert, either, but it looks ancient"

"Hm," the sandy-haired youth nodded. "I should look inside the warehouse."

"Huh? You can't do that," the officer replied.

"We agree an animal must have done this. Now, should that animal sill be alive, inside the warehouse, it would be a danger to the public."

The detective nodded. "It's not a bright idea, Medic Kano, but if it's for the public." He readied the gun he carried by his waist. He held it close against his body. "Let me enter."

"It will be a simple, quick look," he added, turning back toward Medic Kaede. While the tarp was up the other, uniformed officers kept their distance as if not to see the remains. "Nothing will be touched."

"Keep safe, alert," she said, adding dryly: "how many bodies do you want me to process in one day?"

Medic Kaede spotted a single, white claw sticking out of the side of a rib. While no one watched, she pried it, wiggled it back and forth like a loose tooth. It was stuck; she feared using too much force too soon might cause undue and obvious damage. But, with a little effort, a little persistence, it loosened. And freed she held it through her fingers careful not to let the sun shimmer off its surface. She eased the claw under the glove of her right hand - at first its form could be seen through the fabric but at a certain point at the center of her palm there was a great `sucking down' and the whole thing vanished.

"That was close," she sighed.

Kano nodded and approached the door where Hideki waited. There was not an ounce of fear in his stride as he tread from one scene of the crime to another. It was almost as if he knew there would be nothing dangerous within the building. The idea that there would be animals of that kind lost amid the streets of Tokyo seemed to be ridiculous. As was the idea that it would have returned into the building and stayed there all the while the witness and the police busied themselves about the place - _its territory_.

Hideki kept his weapon fixed within his hands as though it was a part of his body. He walked ahead stopping and looking at each and every turn through he maze of the building's vast though sparse interior. Kano held the flashlight firm and still, its bright, Xenon beam did not waver. He walked behind, inspecting, searching at least giving the impression of doing the police work. What did the detective and the medic know as they entered into the warehouse? What did they expect to find within the building?

Inuyasha was smart about hiding - and was careful about leaving as little evidence as possible of his very own existence. There would be no fingerprints, no footprints. No scattered, telltale marks and indications that he lived there. The lair itself was built into a part of the roof designed to be inaccessible; high above the catwalks a normal, everyday human being would have needed a ladder to enter it.

During the war, when the government was hostile and pried into the lives of its citizens, demons felt a great deal of pressure to remain as hidden and secret as possible. To wit lairs had been built into buildings, like skyscrapers and warehouses, usually though not always at the top. At the roof. They preferred to be remote and distant. Unreachable.

"I tell you that's one of the freaks," the detective whispered.

"Searching will be easier than we thought," the medic said, flashing the empty, cavernous shelves with the light. "What about the freaks?"

"I've been a detective for years and I've heard talk, every now and then, about all of the bodies that have been reported through history. Yeah, every so often, like, every ten years, they turn up. Strange, mangled _bodies_. They look human but when they're examined they've got things wrong with them."

"What kind of things? Like, defects?" Kano asked, curious about the turn the conversation took.

"You're a medic, you've heard more tales than me, I'm sure." But when the young man did not reply he continued: "That body outside - the ears look like they've been reshaped."

"Lots of things could be responsible for that."

"Yeah, but, swords! The freaks are always found with swords!"

_Kevin-san, please don't be like that,_ he thought as curiosity turned into revulsion.

Kano stopped - and blinked - and said: "You know, there's nothing important here."

Hideki coughed, relaxing his hold against his weapon. "The dust is inches thick. I thought this placed was maintained. Let's get out before we choke - wait - are those footprints?"

Kano's heart skipped a beat as he shone the Xenon rays of his flashlight upon the floor where Hideki pointed.

"They lead from the front door to the back door," he concluded sighing hard it caused the detective to notice.

"Disappointing." He put the weapon away entirely and sighed, too. "We must've got it wrong bout the warehouse. The freak is outside, chased by whatever animal it was, he thinks its safe inside but when he enters the warehouse he finds its abandoned. No where to run. No where to hide. He leaves through the back door but that part is caged like a trap. The animal kills the freak."

"The animal leaves - the freak -"

"I wonder if animal control is trained to deal with lions and tigers. I'm sure if one of those is on the lose in Tokyo somebody will be seeing it."

* * *

When the world stared anew Zenku found himself in the middle of a sidewalk surrounded by the sounds of urban life. The throngs of commuters, the people minding their business all bumped into him while they walked by. He was startled but not afraid; over time, as it happened again and again, he became used to the discontinuities, the losing of time, the jumping into and out of different places. Indeed there was little to be afraid of as it was a very intimately familiar area along the straight route he walked when traveling back and forth from home to work.

He walked, not because he mistrusted transportation but because it was safer - after Kuzen's return walking kept him away from the buses and the subways with the crowds and the opportunities to rub against those pretty young girls.

That particular corner of the neighborhood housed a temple. It was neither a large nor a famous temple but it was well known to his family. All throughout his childhood his parents and he visited the place. He remembered the worshipers within were always more than a bit `off' - strange and weird - they kept to themselves, they hid from the world. Inside the shrine there seemed to be another parallel universe at work and he, for whatever reason, was not trusted with its secrets. He resented it; he knew, despite the steady denials and constant insistences, that the adults were not telling him everything. And after his parents disappeared he showed that hatred by rejecting the temple and its worship. Even as far as rejecting the priest's offer to help him through that lonely time of his life.

If they did not trust him as a child, why would they trust him as a teen?

Besides, they made him _uncomfortable_.

The way those eyes made him uncomfortable.

Facing the gate, clutching his arms about this body, he recalled an event that happened inside. He was a boy, seven, about ready to enter school for the first time. His parents wanted him to be placed in the temple school the priest organized. They left him there for one, entire day and night. During the day he did not feel anything untoward from anyone - even the adults seemed to be nice, for a moment, they seemed to be lifting that veil of secrecy and revealing themselves to be friendly During the night, though, he was awoken by the sounds of screaming. Somebody, within the temple, was screaming and right then and there he relived it as if it were nightmare: how he struggled out of the bed, how tiptoed into the hallways and passages, sliding door after door until he found the source. It was a boy _his age_ - a boy he had not seen at all throughout his stay - screaming and struggling as he was being held against the floor by the acolytes while the priest was digging a knife into his ear.

That vision itself was not what shocked him. Reflexively, almost instinctively, he knew the memory about the event was incomplete. But he could not recall the rest of the fragments - he could not remember what it was about the sight that truly and deeply unsettled him - because the crushing weight of time and the self-preserving nature of his mind obscured the finer details from his memory. And all that was left of what ever it could have been was the intuition that materialized through the slow, creeping horror of the realization that something was not right about the boy's ear.

After that he refused to be left there at night and his parents relented, dropping him off in a normal, everyday school.

It had been years since last he entered yet the temple was as disjointed and abandoned as always. It was quiet too, like a tomb, for even the earth kept its secrets there. He did not go further into the shrine beyond the crematory - only that much of it was open for the public anyway - and there inside he saw two mourners. The very young-looking couple cried before a corroded, bronze nameplate much as a newlywed pair might weep before the grave of their would-be first-born. He could not read the name off the plate from the distance but he could read the date of death: July 1, 1901. He blinked and knit his brow: _why a couple so young would be so moved by a death predating their births by decades?_

And why was _he_ there?

Except for the eerie, disconnected sense of the familiar there would be nothing for him there. But - there was a plaque that caught his eye - a plaque engraved with his family name. A force akin to fire obliterated through spider-like scorch marks the rest of the name and the date. And he fancied it was not always like that. He could not trust his impression for his memories of that temple were more than supernaturally tainted. Still, _he knew_ he knew what name was used to be burnished into the plate. It was on his lips, in the verge of being out of nothing, yet it did not materialize.

It was as long ago as to have been from another lifetime altogether.

Zenku tapped the nameplate and was struck by how hollow and empty it felt.

The effect was too much; he stepped away from the mausoleum and walked across to the courtyard. A breeze swept through the trees, shaking the leaves off onto the ground wet from yesterday's rain. It exuded that same smell of coldness and newness. That same smell that brought memories. Everything about the shrine was dead - like its worshipers who dropped out of the face of the earth - yet beyond man's understanding faint and imperceptible, there lingered a hint of the possibility of rebirth.

Again he ventured to work and to that building that looming dizzily overhead.

As he crossed the street toward the concrete pavilion, toward the glass doors that lead into the building, he was struck by a feature of the architecture heretofore unknown to him. The tower was otherwise so clean, so well-constructed, its façade from the base to the crown was flat and featureless. But then, just then, the shape of the crevices about the doors, the indentations around the windows and the shadows cast by the sun, it worked together to form what appeared to be a mouth - a spider's hungry mouth - complete with dark, long fangs pointing into the entrance watching and waiting for its victims.

Every facet of its construction was fundamentally wrong and unnatural; the whole thing could have been alive at another superior level of reality but dead, cold and sterile, within that human-world. He envisioned a line of children with those long, misshapen ears standing under those fangs waiting to be impaled. Monsters, demonic and unearthly, throwing the bodies into the mouth, a fire within bursting with a flash as the building consumed the victim and fueled itself and its other, unseen machinations. He, too, sacrificed himself just by entering.

"Kuzen does not blink." He turned-up the collar of his jacket - which had been newly laundered - and kept his hands in his pockets tight to his body as if fighting a stiff, bitter wind. "Kuzen does not blink, ever."

Zenku reached the door. With his thumbprint they opened; passing through they closed. And he knew, as he heard the glass doors slide shut, that he was already dead. He was already dead though his body was alive. Incomplete and imperfect, he was missing something, _something inside_, like a soul. But what it was and when it happened _and how it happened_ he did not know. It was just a feeling, a sense, and the rest he could not remember.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

When Inuyasha reached the head of the staircase, he was met with, by of all things, a heavy, wooden door. On one side - his side - it was rough and abused. On the other side - which he saw through its sliver-wide crack - it appeared to be finished and well kept as if to blend into a wall. He stuck the blade of his weapon through the crevice to spy with its shiny metallic reflection who or what might have been hiding thereabout. He was at once relieved and at once disturbed by the fact that the hallway beyond was empty. Again, with the leverage of the blade through the crevice, he pried open the door. He could have used the knob but he preferred the old-fashioned, silent way.

Beyond it, from the doorway to the passage, that place - whatever it was he stumbled into - was bright and very utterly quiet. At first there seemed to be no surveillance cameras but he did not let that cloud his judgment. The smell of Naraku was strong and he knew, all too well he knew, that ancient demon did not need human technology to oversee the workings of his lair.

He tiptoed about the tile work of the floor, advancing through the corridor one doorway at a time. All of the entryways were locked - he tried their knobs but they would not turn - but he did not need to see through them to know they were the hallmark of an office building. Now what he wanted to know was the building's name, its location, its address. He searched for signs detailing the identities of the offices and who owned them, who worked them. But the entire location was Spartan with only the minutest of details: not numbers, not letters were etched upon the doors to differentiate one from the next.

From one end of the hallway to another, he searched and found a stairwell. He entered into the shaft of dark and shadowy concrete steps as soon as he gleaned that opening the door would not sound an alarm. Most of the newer buildings forced their tenants to use the elevators and leave the stairs for emergency use only. But that stairwell was not alarmed and he wondered _too late_ if it was a good idea to be taking it for it could have been well used by the building's inhabitants. But it was a risk to be taken. He looked up and saw the steps continued through several other floors, spiraling into a point of singular absolute void. He climbed; the air becoming hot and humid and the smell of Naraku thickening into the verge of being overbearing.

After ten floors ascending through that stairwell became too dangerous. While the basement levels were quietly abandoned the upper levels were full of bustling activity. Also: he could not sense the presence of Inukotsu within the shaft anymore.

Reaching the last floor of the tenuous climb, he pressed his body against the level's entryway and listened. He heard people conversing in low, rhythmic tones whose words were muffled by distance and by whisper. He pressed the handlebar easy and gently that the locking mechanism would not click - and once unlocked he looked through the crack he formed between the door and the wall. To the right he saw the silhouettes of two people further into the passage near the bend of the corridor. To the left he did not see anything dangerous.

He opened the crevice further, carefully tucking his sword into jacket such that if he were spotted he would not be thought of as being too threatening. He stepped through the crevice into the hallway and with the same ease and gentility he let the doorway slide itself shut. His eyes did not leave the visage of the silhouettes at the end of the passage until that entryway was closed. Right then and there he looked back: where once he did not see danger now he saw that the corridor terminated only a few feet away and he found himself staring into the floor's restroom.

And at that moment, heart-racing and palms-sweating, he heard and saw those faraway, distant shadows moving toward him.

Inuyasha ran into the bathroom - the male bathroom - bolted into its first unoccupied stall and shut its partition. There was already a man within the facility, at the urinal, but his attention was neither focused nor bothered by the half-demon's intrusion. It was at that instant that he two unseen but heard shadows entered the restroom; the strangers continued their conversation as they approached adjacent urinals.

He peered through the gaps along the sides of the stall. He could not see the men's faces - only the backs of their heads - but what there was to see of them was enough. He should have known it by the fragments of the coded words they had been speaking throughout. He should have known it by the stench of Naraku's miasma that would be lethal to all, ordinary humans. It was obvious, it was clear and simple, and there it was, staring back at him through the cracks into which he gazed: the men who entered and the man who had been there already were demons.

Their ears betrayed the shape of their heritage.

He stayed there, still and quiet, watching through the makeshift peephole. He waited for the men to turn and pass by his field of view; he could not recognize them but they were definitely and undeniably demons, their eyes were a deep, glowing red and their faces were too unnaturally young.

When he was alone and certain the male demons were far enough away, he snuck out of the bathroom and slunk back into the hallway.

He explored about the floor. He noted the doors were not locked but decided not to venture through them unless it was to hide. Again he saw no signs of video surveillance but decided, too, not to be that bold and reckless.

Quite suddenly and without expecting it he discovered the lobby. Remaining by the far, distant corner of the passage he looked intermittently toward that portion of the corridor with the guard and the elevators.

The elevator opened and what appeared to be a man entered into the lobby. It seemed to be a human, bald-headed, wearing a ragged jacket and looking very much emotionally-unbalanced. He nodded at the guard who was demonic and who let him pass without a word. The guard pressed a button under the table behind which he sat as the man filed past him through the hallway toward Inuyasha's direction.

Inuyasha withdrew; he held onto a doorknob just in case he needed to get out of the way fast. The man, though, stopped before he could be spotted. He looked again through the corner of the passage. He saw the human fumble with a keychain holding ten keys; he watched the man enter a door whose nameplate was marked `H'. Just as quickly as he opened it he shut it behind. Even through the wall he heard the man sigh and felt the human's distress working through his system. There was something _wrong_ about him. But what caught the half-demon's attention more than anything was the scents of Naraku and the traces of blood - human blood - and the hints of death - human death - that clung onto that man's skin.

What was that place? What was happing there?

Gazing into the hallway he was relieved to see the guard left his post. He rushed into the lobby and swiveled the guard's chair from the desk to the elevator. He pressed the button that opened its door and slid the chair onto that boundary between the passage's floor and the elevator's floor.

Satisfied with the setup, he backtracked through the floor running along with swift, long strides. He reached the stairwell, sauntered up to the floor above and then, following similar twists and turns, reached a new yet familiar lobby. Like the floor beneath there was a guard sitting at a table before the elevator. It was not the only demon he had had a close encounter with throughout that level but it was the only demon he purposely _approached._

Without making a sound he ran and jumped onto the table. The guard was surprised: he stood but fumbled and fell aback onto the seat. Demon and chair together crashed against the wall and slumped into the floor. It would have been comical if Inuyasha had been in a good mood; such as it was, he rapped the scabbard of his weapon across the head of the guard and knocked him out, clean and cold.

Upon the tabletop was a clipboard with a paper clamped into its jaw. The document listed names - none of which he recognized - with check marks and time stamps. The demon-guard had been keeping track of who was coming into and out of the level and when. The paper, though, was scant; it neither revealed the name of the building nor its address. And it gave no indication of just what was happening there. But it did not matter.

He approached the elevator and with all of his might opened its door. The ceiling of the car was just a few feet below the bottom of the floor. A simple jump and he was upon it.

Inuyasha did not wait long - the guard of the lobby one flood below returned and noticed _the change._ As soon as the chair was removed the elevator was shut. He could hear it happening but he could not see it happening. He could not see very much at all for he could not see through the elevator car itself.

The shaft, though, was not pitch-black. There were lights throughout the length of the walls - blue, soft light - spread about one bulb per ten feet. The eerie, smoky luminance was dull yet bright enough that he eked out the visual details of the roof of the car. What he need to find was the access hatch; and after a quick search he found it but instead of sliding it away he ripped it away like opening a tin can. Beneath it was the tile of the elevator's inner ceiling. He stuck his sword into the tile, pulled it off and slid it out of the way. Just like that the whole of the inside of the car could be seen and the light within illuminated into the shaft. He saw the panel - the buttons were not far - he could have jumped into the elevator but that would have been too dangerous. Instead he reached with his weapon and with its tip he pressed the up most button. The button of the eightieth floor.

The cables tensed, the gears heaved and the car ascended. He slid the tile back and retreated onto the center of the ceiling of the elevator. He could have sworn the panel contained buttons beyond the eightieth floor but from that vantage point he could not touch them even if he saw them, even if they existed. While he would be going up, he reasoned, he would not be going up to the _very_ _top_. And he knew whatever secret the building hid it was contained within its apex.

Before skyscrapers, before war, before Japan opened itself into the world, there had been castles and battlements and _towers._ At their apexes, far removed from the normal, everyday population, demons lurked. Rarely, if ever, they left those lofty abodes on high and if they did it was amid the cover of the night. It was safer to be higher: one could be better prepared and fortified if one could be that inaccessible.

And when skyscrapers were introduced demons found them to be the perfect retreat and they setup roof top societies with their own, secret laws and customs - complete and parallel civilizations - until Naraku infected into them.

At last the elevator stopped and its door opened. Naturally, no one left, no one entered. But Inuyasha did not have the time to contemplate anything about the situation. He searched around the shaft and found an indentation carved into the wall: it was wide enough to allow a man to be within it, safely removed and out of the way of the elevator. It was then and there that he discovered the iron-rung ladder like the kind he encountered within the tunnel under the manhole.

Through the dim, azure light he saw an impossible number of floors above yet to be reached. And without another thought he started going up with all of his speed. He climbed keeping his sword secure along his belt: he could not afford to lose the mystical weapon stuck in that precarious location. Keeping his eyes focused upon the task he could not tell how many floors he passed from one moment to the next. And like a sleeper caught within the trap of nightmare he felt he did not climb fast enough.

The ladder ended.

Inuyasha looked up and saw the machinery of cables and pulleys - and counterweights - that marked the very top of the elevator shaft. Suddenly and unexpectedly he was shocked by a rush of adrenaline as the facts of the situation crashed into his mind. He was a thousand feet above the ground, in a hot and humid unlit shaft. The smell of Naraku was choking-thick and deadened, muffled his motion - there was just _that_ little oxygen left within the atmosphere. And there amid the void he reached the end of the tunnel. There was no where to go, no where to go.

He looked left - there was a door but it was shut and from that position it was inaccessible. He looked right - and smiled, breath taking and heart racing with relief - for above the ladder, right above the last, iron rung, there was the grating of a ventilation shaft.

It was a thin, wire mesh and it collapsed with a punch. He let it, the debris, fall through the elevator shaft. The echo of it hitting rock bottom did not come even into his ears. And now that the vent was clear it was time to enter.

He dug the claws of his left hand into the metal of the elevator shaft and with that leverage climbed onto the top-rung of the ladder. With his right hand he slid his weapon into the vent - its tunnel was level and straight as far as his vision penetrated into the void. He eased his head and upper-body into the hole, pushing himself as deep into the tunnel as the grip of his imbedded claws afforded.

He slunk waist-deep into the ventilation shaft when he dug into the thin, metal sheet of its tunnel with his right hand - with its four, remaining claws. Lifting his left knee onto the wall of the elevator shaft, he jumped with his right leg and managed to slither that leg into the tunnel. Holding as tight as possible he walked his left hand from the wall to the hole and tore that set of claws into the ventilation shaft. From that point more digging and more pushing brought that other leg - and the rest of his body - into the tunnel.

Safe, as safe as anyone could be inside Naraku's lair, Inuyasha felt re-awakened, re-invigorated and he crawled forward into the light.

That light was coming through a vent along the floor of a junction into which the tunnel emptied. The junction was about the size of a closet, profusely corded and tightly cramped, its floor triangularly shaped. On the long-wall, on its base, was that wide thin grating. The adjacent walls, ninety-degrees apart, were the two shafts, the one through which he passed and the other that seemed to be shorter. Peering into it, he found that it was a vertical tunnel with another iron-rung ladder.

Again he secured his weapon, again he climbed the ladder up to its top. There he discovered another triangular junction. Its orientation was twisted, though, as if reflected through a mirror. Still, like the previous junction there was nowhere to go but through the adjacent opening, the other tunnel ninety-degrees askew.

He noticed his movements were slow and sluggish as the Naraku-infested miasma thickened like smog within his lungs -so, to catch his breath, he stopped from time to time and looked through the side-gratings.

The first room appeared to be a lobby. It was impressively large, impossibly huge; though its true dimensions could not be fathomed from that vantage point. He could not see the ceiling itself but he could see it was propped by white, marble columns. The floor, too, was marble composed of green and while patina. The texture of the walls was obscured by the dim, dull light of torches and masked by the dark, full-length fabrics of curtains. Beyond it was the suggestion of elevators and the suggestion of someone - or something - standing before them holding a weapon.

He continued through the tunnel and found the second room. It was smaller and brighter than the first room and, by the looks of it, it seemed to be a waiting room. The floor was still that green, white marble. The walls were a stately, wooden paneling with marble trimming. The ceiling was wooden, too, with modern and elegant fixtures.

And there, upon a grand and sweeping desk by an equally regal and impressive set of doors sat the secretary.

On the telephone, she spoke: "You already know what Mr. Onigumo has to say about Captain Takeshi's performance last night." The voice was a mixture of annoyed and indifferent; it was arrogant _and familiar._

The figure, obviously the secretary herself, swiveled the leatherback chair and faced the wooden seats of the waiting room. Cast under the dead, gray fluorescence her colors were muted but her identity could not be denied: it was Kagura, the telephone in one hand, the fan in the other cooling herself.

The doors opened and - _was it possible?_ Inuyasha blinked, his blood running cold through his veins. _But how did he survive?_

It was Kohaku, grown-up and older, yet looking young - _and innocent_ - like the boy he promised Sango he would not harm.

Kohaku sat upon a chair and wrapped about his hands the chain of a sharp, pointed weapon while Kagura's red, demonic eyes stared onto its sharp, jagged tip.

Careful not to be loud, Inuyasha crawled further and discovered the third and last room.

The spider's web.

He saw Naraku naked behind a desk. Behind him was a wall of black whose texture was imperceptible and whose form was impenetrable. Everything, everywhere, was wrapped in shadows and darkness yet there was light washing upon the demon's visage - the light came from a point in the middle of the chamber and not from a window. Indeed, then and there he realized that throughout his adventure he had not seen a single, solitary window _anywhere_.

There was Kanna - an older, teenaged incarnation of Kanna - as emotionless as ever. Dressed in deceptive white and holding a circular mirror she aimed its glass at Naraku. The ancient spider looked into it, utterly transfixed, perversely fascinated by whatever it was he watched.

In his wild and reckless youth he would have crashed through the wall - the old Inuyasha was thoughtless, the new Inuyasha was wiser. He had to be. Things were different. In the modern world he had to be careful the way he used his powers, especially his sword's powers, since most of the demons he faced from time to time had attacks of their own - meaning that if battles involved the use of mutual, mystical attacks they would have been long, violent and _very noticeable_ to onlookers. To human onlookers.

To conform into society and to preserve their anonymity, demons relied upon the quick and dirty methods of the sword more often that not. For that reason he sharpened Tetsaiga and learned the art and discipline of the sword. Thus better judgment and training forbade him to jump into the fray haphazardly without a plan.

He continued through the passage until it terminated at a region of bright, intense light. It was at the site of another ventilation grating - he punched it free and it tumbled into the sky out of sight and out of mind. At last_,_ at long last, there was a window and looking through it he understood that Naraku's lair was among the tallest buildings of Tokyo. Across was a tower with a flat, featureless roof two hundred feet shorter. To the left and to the right were other buildings of various heights well below the vertical limit of Naraku's empire.

He poked his head through the shaft, relishing the cool, unpolluted air. Again he was energized and invigorated. Yet he did not continue, he lingered for a long, endless moment to inhale the panorama of the scene.

A battle with Naraku would not be feasible that deep within the spider-mind's territory. Kohaku would be a problem. Kagura might be impelled to interfere. And what about Inukotsu - she was not dead - and he cold not sense where she was through the fog of Naraku's miasma.

But what did they matter? What he wanted - it was not a fight, it was information.

He backtracked through the passage and discovered another one of those tiny, triangular junctions. It led into a ladder; _it_ led onto a level he assumed to be just above the ceiling of Naraku's office. There, through the tunnel, he crawled until he came upon a portion of the shaft where light, faint and eerie, seeped up through a grating from Kanna's mirror to his face.

_What luck!_ he thought as he started below directly above Kanna.

Inuyasha punched through the grating - it tumbled away straight onto Kanna's head - and without a second thought he jumped into the hole, unsheathing his weapon while falling. There was not as much as a shriek when Kanna was knocked unconscious - she just collapsed like a rag-doll. Like a cat he landed onto his feet with his sword pointed into Naraku's face.

He approached the spider-demon.

"Inuyasha," Naraku taunted in that low, deliberate tone of voice. The syllables slithered across his lips with an ageless hate and fury. "How nice of you to drop on in." The head and torso of the naked figure leaned over the desk and laughed.

"I'll take care of this once and for all!" shouted a woman.

Inuyasha turned just in time - he hit Inukotsu's blade with his own.

"Time to finish what I started," snarled the half-demon as he kicked at the woman's chest. He withdrew, across the desk, from one side of the office to the other all the while Naraku laughed. That area of the room was absolute pitch-black; he imagined it would be impossible that anything about the universe could be blacker.

Inuyasha continued his retreat as Inukotsu continued her attack, tricking her into following him away from Naraku. When he judged they were far enough from the arachnid he swung and she withdrew. He kicked her knee. She stumbled but dodged his blow. Now he took advantage of the reversal, advancing and striking hard and fast all the while she could not think and strategize as she was busy meeting his sword-strokes and keeping herself from stumbling.

"Inuyasha. You know I did not hold a grudge against you," continued Naraku. The sides of his mouth were transforming from human form to insect like quality. Mandibles, pinching and salivating, protruded through his lips along those places his teeth used to be. "My fight was not against you, _I only wanted the jewel._"

Inuyasha ignored Naraku, it was pointless to debate with the spider-mind. He needed all of his powers focused onto the fight. He wanted to finish the brother-sister pair. As long as one lived while the other died it would be _personal_.

With his sword and his skill Inuyasha brought Inukotsu back into that space by the desk. It was not where he wanted to be, though, that close with Naraku. He broke his advance and circled her body about ninety-degrees until he and Naraku formed a straight line with her in the middle of it - she took advantage of the opportunity to strike but he anticipated that move and met her blade with his own.

"You should have joined with me when I gave you the chance. You could have ruled over these humans like your _father._ But you chose to join with them to wallow with them through their filth. And now look at you, Inuyasha, you reek."

Inuyasha and Inukotsu neared and pressed their bodies into each other's sides with their arms holding their swords interlocked through a fearsome struggle - she cursed and he growled and just once, then and there, decided to try _one_ attack.

"You will not destroy Kagome! _Wind scar_!" At that command Tetsaiga grew into its proper size and it caught Inukotsu off-balance as its blade sliced and stabbed into her flesh. She stumbled aback more shocked than bleeding. The wound was deep, not enough to kill only enough to disorient. He dropped the weapon and grabbed the demon by her neck and her waist - he raised her body over his head and for the first time Naraku showed an emotion beside mere arrogant smugness.

The half-demon threw her toward Naraku - onto what he imagined to be the wall behind Naraku. But it was not a wall, it was a curtain, and when Inukotsu crashed into it she smashed through the windows beneath the covers. Instantly she found herself launched two thousand feet above the streets of Tokyo. She shrieked as she fell out of the sky.

Inuyasha grabbed his weapon - that shrunk back into its relaxed state - and trained his eyes onto the spider-demon: now that there was light he saw Naraku, _all of Naraku_.

He realized why the monster lived in darkness and shadow. The Naraku he once knew at least kept the form of a man; but the Naraku he now saw was a creature so absorbed with so many of the country's demons that he could no longer contain his body entirely within one, single shape. There was a human-like head, a human-like torso with arms and legs. But coming out of his back there were tentacles, throbbing and winding. And budding out of his unnaturally thin, insect like waist there were four large, round masses like the abdomens of spiders hairy and bristling. There were other, unspeakable forms of flesh, heaving and pulsating, that looked as if they were melting out of solid shape into liquid goop. Parts of one thing that were assembling into parts of another thing as the demon constantly reworked itself.

At the base it grew roots into the substance of the floor - Naraku was not only too large to move about freely but just to stand upright immoveable he had to be fixed into the floor.

"And I reek. I'm normal compared to you," Inuyasha sneered. "This is power, Naraku? You think you rule this world when you can't even walk around in it -"

"I don't have to patrol my territory - _like dogs_ have to patrol theirs - my web is every where and I feel its every move."

"Enough bullshit - "

"Yes, yes. You are here because you know of my plan. Because you deciphered just a small, little portion of it. From that news conference - oh, heh, heh, heh - Captain Takeshi and his detectives will be getting what's coming to them. You should have joined with me when I gave you the chance. Fool! What are these humans to you?"

"I know what you're after and I'll never let you harm Kagome."

"Me? Me, harm Kagome? Never -"

"You're behind the murdering of those girls. You're trying to find her and kill her."

Naraku allowed himself a smile - and the rows of the teeth froze Inuyasha's blood.

"And I thought you might have grown wiser with age. Fool, you think you've protected her from me - you've led me to her. I knew she was not of _that_ time but I did not know of _when_ she came. Centuries my agents worked, searching through the countryside for a girl with her looks, with her features that I remembered _exactly._ Yet, even now, I could not be sure she was of this time. Now, _now_, I know _she's here_, Inuyasha."

Naraku laughed and Inuyasha growled - could it have been a trap to get him to say, directly or indirectly, that Kagome was alive at that place and time?

"Damn you!"

"In this world, what happens that I cannot see? What secrets it hides that I do not know? She'll be found, sooner or later, and she'll be killed. And you're going to watch just like I watched my Kikyo die."

"_Asshole!_ I'll destroy you!

"Hah, hah, hah! As long as there is evil, _Naraku lives!"_

Inuyasha rushed into Naraku with his sword fully enlarged. He jumped onto the desk and the spider-demon grew a tentacle out of its chest and swatted him away like a fly. The half-demon fell against his ribs, awake and alert but dazed.

"I told you _I get stronger with time!_ Heh, heh, heh, Kagura bought you time but she could not stop _my_ _Kohaku_ from coming to my rescue."

"Huh?" Inuyasha whimpered. He stood at the corner between the collapsed curtains revealing the broken windows and Naraku's monstrous and ungodly visage. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he saw Kohaku under the slant of the daylight, approaching and unfurling his weapon.

Inuyasha growled, again, with his sword pointed toward Naraku's face. He ran and landed atop the desk - at that moment Kohaku's weapon soared through the air - with a move as fast as lightning he jump from the table to the top of Naraku's head. It was just a moment and it was just far enough away that the point of Kohaku's weapon _only_ _lightly_ pierced into his arm when it struck against his flesh - he cursed though he knew it could have been worse for the spike had been aimed at his chest. It tore into his flesh as it embedded itself into his arm like a hornet's stinger - he shouted almost falling off of his precarious perch.

Kohaku jerked the chain - Inuyasha jumped, breaking Naraku's neck bone. The spider-demon continued to laugh even as its head went limp. The combined motion of the jerk and the jump forced the blade free of Inuyasha's arm, producing a twisted, deep gash. But he did not stop and look as he landed atop the framework of the windows. With another leap he was airborne and headed onto the roof of the building nearby, two hundred feet below.

"Let him go," Naraku spoke as his head resumed its stature upon his neck, its bones regenerating themselves. "He'll lead us to her."


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Zenku entered the office and leaned back against the door. He sighed: for a moment his nervousness lifted, his heartbeat settled, for an instant he felt at peace. Until he inhaled the air and coughed. There was just something foul about the air inside that building, something that was and would be always _unclean_. Along the floor by his feet were empty canisters of air fresheners; he bought them when he first moved into the office thinking the smell could be masked but that odor was too potent and that room was too tiny and poorly ventilated that the mix of the fumes only irritated his senses and he could not work - whatever his work was supposed to be.

And that, perhaps, was the strangest part of the whole business: he did not know exactly what his job was.

He dusted his coat and removed it, turning around to place it upon the hook of the door - a hook that had been poking too dangerously close against his skull. But, just as he was about to place the jacket onto the hook he noticed a bright, pin-prick of light. It was a peephole. He looked it stunned and yet not surprised. Had it been installed during his absence? Had it been there before and he had not realized it until now?

It was a part of the nature of the building to be always changing. From the outside it seemed rather constant if not unbearably normal - except for its height - but from the inside things were different. The fixtures, the facilities, from the layout of the floors to the position of the furniture, things changed day after day. Moment by moment the building evolved, dismantling and re-organizing itself into complex yet efficient designs.

Accepting that it was there and that it was more or less a permanent feature he looked through the peephole - but it had been installed _backward_ and only a person out in the hallway could use it.

Just then, as he was looking through it - trying to look through it - the form of a large, burly figure obstructed the field of view. It leaned into the other side of the peephole as if to see through it. The figure, whose face was distorted and familiar, knocked.

Zenku was shocked by the fury of the knocking - he staggered aback as if stung, his body shaking, his heart racing.

The figure along the other side of the door did not bother for a reply - it must have seen Zenku's reaction and as soon as the way was clear opened the door and entered the room.

"Mr. Hitomi," he said through a voice that was broken with the stammering of sudden fear and terror. Mr. Hitomi, he believed - because there was no reason to disbelieve - was his superior.

He recalled that day when he awoke and saw that huge, Manhattan-like building in Tokyo's skyline. He could have sworn that it was not there that night and it proved to be impossible explaining its unexpected appearing. But he was struck by its beauty: it looked too much like a famous, old American skyscraper to be real. And, anyway, he needed a closer look. He left the apartment without breakfasting and walked about the streets gazing up at the building. Most of the people were oblivious to it but every so often there were others, others _like him,_ looking into the sky. Were they seeing it? Or were they wondering what it was that he - no doubt looking like a crazed lunatic crossing the streets erratically - was staring at?

When he reached the sidewalk about the tower the effect the building exerted upon the citizens was magnified. Most of the people could not see the tower the way he could see the tower. The rest were the few who did notice it but they were completely and utterly afraid. They saw, they stared and when they became too afraid they fled. As though they knew what lurked within. It was an odd mixture, too, of the population: from street thugs to well-dressed professionals.

That was when he first smelled the miasma. It sickened him and he grew weak. About to swoon, he clung onto the walls, he staggered along the edifice toward the doors of a lobby that opened. That was when he first heard the voice of Mr. Hitomi and it sounded as annoyed then as it did now.

It should be said that Zenku _heard_ the man but did not _see_ the man.

He was asked for his name and he gave it meekly through the shattered voice of a man who could not stand erect. He was asked what he was doing coming there and when he himself could not give a coherent answer - his speech degenerated into a jumble of disorganized words - a hand grabbed his arm and dragged into an elevator. The rest was a blur until Mr. Hitomi brought him into that office and said he would be working there and that soon he would be meeting the boss, Mr. Onigumo.

And that was when he first saw Mr. Hitomi.

"Where were you yesterday, Zenku?" he asked, his voice teeming with pent-up rage. His tone was not loud or angry but its accusatory cadence could not be mistaken.

"I, I don't know, sir, I - I - was home -"

"You remember what Mr. Onigumo said, don't you? Don't you? You are to report here each and every morning from eight to four. That is your job, Zenku, this is not a place to be fucking up."

Mr. Hitomi was a strict man. He wore a black uniform - like the rest of the guards of the building - but unlike them he was armed with a pair of swords. It was strange but he did not question it. Many things about the universe were strange yet they were.

Actually, it was Mr. Hitomi's ears that were weirder. Most of the time the man wore his black hair long, very long, and it was hard to catch more than a few superficial glances of them. But there was that day when he brought him up to see Mr. Onigumo.

Up to that office. In that darkness. Through that shadow he noticed Mr. Onigumo's glowing red eyes. They looked monstrously inhuman and demonic and as he stared into them the boss's face began to lose its human appearance. His features _were melting_ revealing the sight of things utterly and indescribably grotesque. Things that resembled an insect's head and body. And there was an unearthly `breathing' noise - a ghastly `hissing' sound - that was coming from behind him. The full-length windows with their drawn up curtains were hinting at the source of it through their reflections - and though his mind erased the sight of what he saw the memory of it, just its bare and fragmented impression, was enough to freeze the life out of his body.

He remembered he tried to turn around and leave. He recalled he struggled - with Mr. Hitomi and with another man dressed in black - but he was pinned onto the boss's desk. He punched and kicked and someway, somehow struck Mr. Hitomi and he stumbled back. And the way he flailed his arms about to break his fall brushed his hair aside and exposed his ears.

Zenku could not forget it - his ears were longer than a human's _and pointed._

"Mr. Onigumo is not a man to be fucked with. Need I remind you," he stressed with a strong, forceful stab of his finger onto Zenku's shoulder, "you made a deal with the boss. He's kept _his_ end of the bargain."

"Kuzen," Zenku gulped and bit his lip, bowed his head.

"Yes, Zenku, don't you think you should be keeping _yours_?"

He was reminded of the events that transpired just before he met Mr. Onigumo. It was the waiting room and there were so many people there, sitting upon the wooden chairs even upon the marble floors. He learned they had been pulled right off of the street - like he had been taken - but he did not learn more than that because the secretary, whose eyes also showed to be red, kept them from speaking to each other.

They grew to be quiet - and nervous - for all sorts of sounds, struggles and screams, could be heard coming through the big, double-doors of the office. A few people tried to leave but a pair of twins armed with swords kept the waiting room doors shut and would not let anyone pass in or out. When it was his turn to meet the boss he entered the office with a heavy heart - he realized only too late people entered the chamber but did not leave it.

Mr. Hitomi and that other, silent man directed him to the desk and he sat. That voice, soft yet deliberate, started to speak and lulled him into a relaxed state. The miasma thickened but his body did not react against it anymore as it started to work like an intoxicant. The voice - of the figure whose face he could not see yet - coaxed a story out of him about his twin sister and how he missed having her.

Mr. Onigumo proposed a deal - he did not believe it, he could not believe it. He tried to leave but the deal persisted and he would not believe it. It was impossible - everyone from his parents to that priest told him it was impossible. The boss promised to bring her back. She would be returned and they would be together as long as he kept his end of the bargain, as long as he did the job.

"I'll be a good boy," he stammered. "I'll do my job. Just don't take her from me. I can't live without her."

Mr. Hitomi nodded. He dropped a pile of newspapers onto the desk. He turned but before he left he shut the door. He grabbed the hook that was upon it and with a violent twist jerked it off and let it fall upon the jacket Zenku himself let fall upon the floor by the canisters.

He opened the door and paused to look back at Zenku: "Boy, you don't know how lucky you are. You don't want to know what Mr. Onigumo does to those who fail him."

He gulped and with that the door shut and he was alone.

Standing by the desk, he looked at his jacket - at his bottles of air fresheners - and up and down he looked at the wall. Illuminated by the light of the monitors - the monitors were the only source of light within that confined and window-less office - the wall was a makeshift shrine he built and maintained for his sister. Taped onto it were pictures of Kuzen. All sorts of pictures of Kuzen. There were none of her as a baby, or as a girl, or as a teen - there never were and never would be - but there were many of her as an adult.

She looked so beautiful and as he stared at her he began to fantasize about her. He brought himself face to face with the largest of the photographs - except it was not a photograph it was printed upon the wrong kind of paper, it was too thick, too flimsy, but that did not matter for he did not see _it_ he saw _her_. He kissed her image, its black and white colors tasting bland and metallic. But he was not turned off by the flavor because he did not feel the problem. He imagined it to be the flesh of her cheek _and it was_ the flesh of her cheek. He wanted to hold against her and to grind into her. For a moment he imagined that through the picture, through the wall upon which the picture was taped, there grew the warmth of flesh - _her flesh_ - and it was indistinguishable from having Kuzen alive right then and there.

His bulge, growing heavy and uncomfortable, throbbed between his legs and he grinded against the wall.

She was his twin sister. She was another he. And if it was not wrong to masturbate himself, why would it be wrong to yearn for her body?

"_We were like this, closer, longer than any two people could be. What can be more intimate than that? If this isn't right, nothing's right in this world."_

A shuffle of feet came from behind the door and the pinprick of light returned, stabbing into the side of his face.

_But, after all, it was not Kuzen, it was a wall -_

Zenku sat at the desk and skimmed through the stack of documents Mr. Hitomi left. They were newspapers: a few were professional papers the rest were student papers coming out of local high schools and colleges. Part of his job, he reasoned, was to search through newspapers. But for what he did not know and, then, he just searched for the things that he liked. The things that excited him. Most of the time the only things that attracted that attention were the pictures of the girls.

They were all young and gorgeous. And he loved them. The beautiful ones, with their long, black hair, with their uniforms! What was it about those white shirts and those green skirts that just begged for his hand to reach into them? What were they hiding down there, between their legs, that his fingers were dying to discover?

He looked at the photographs of the girls without reading, fantasizing about the idea of just talking to one of those teenagers. Maybe feeling about their secret, intimate parts. Maybe molesting their breasts, ravaging their vaginas while they sat atop his lap and grinded their skirts into his crotch.

That fantasy was always enough to arouse him into climax and that morning it seemed to be without exception.

"If you shaved off Kuzen's hair you would find a tattoo of that identical hair beneath."

If she were there she would have been very cross about him getting dirty thoughts looking at those pictures. Kissing those pictures. Bringing the faces of those pictures against the tent of his crotch. More than a few of those images disintegrate within his fingers as he grinded into them and he laughed for some, odd reason at the thought of it. But there was one that caught his eye - he could not bring himself to deflower it - he stared at it, studied it. It was a photograph of Kagome Higurashi, a high school girl; the caption told about her winning a culture festival but the camera angle gave such a view of her cleavage that it sent his hand down between his legs.

"Kuzen!" he whimpered as if agonized. Without waiting any longer he tore the image out of the newspaper and taped it over the image upon the wall that he wet with his saliva. It was bigger than the photograph beneath and showed _so much_. "Kuzen, you want my load, don't you? Kuzen? Let me give you my load!"

Frantically, like an animal, he humped into the wall that was already somewhat dented from all of the times before he humped into it. He grinded, thrashing his hips and smashing his body into the wall to the point where if he were not as aroused as he was it would have been painful. In that wild and furious state of mind he kept thinking about her massaging his sac and stroking about his shaft making him grow and brining him closer and closer into orgasm. He pictured it happening like in all of that pornography he loved to watch.

"Kuzen!" His face came to rest against the picture, eyes and mouth wide open. His body was suddenly very still and exhausted. He held his breath and shuddered, feeling himself squirt into his underwear. He jerked almost flopping about the wall as the orgasm continued, shot after shot. "Kuzen," he cooed as he fell onto his knees and revealed the wet and warped image of the face of Kagome Higurashi.

Sitting aback against the chair, he swiveled from the wall of the Kuzen shrine - that was dented and moist - to the banks of the monitors above the desktop.

Exhausted but alert, he stared into the monitors. It must have been the one and only thing he loved more than staring at girls: staring at girls _in motion_. Dynamic _erotic_ motion. He watched them in their locker rooms and their gym classes, he watched them walking about the streets around the schools their movements were so chaotic, so varied, it was like watching raindrops fall. It was never, ever, quite exactly the same from one moment to the next.

Gradually, it produced a tent along the wettest parts of his pants.

"I can't control me, Kuzen, and you can't you either."

* * *

With Inukotsu's body laying on the sidewalk in front of Naraku's lair, people were too busy looking and staring at it than at him. He was ignored and unnoticed and that was the way he liked it. Of course he could not go through Tokyo with a wound along his arm - walking around the modern city like that was not normal and was liable to attract attention. But he unzipped his coat's hood and wrapped it tight about his arm's gash. And it stopped the bleeding. It did not stop the pain but that did not matter; unlike Inukotsu's injury the rift into his flesh would heal by itself.

He trekked through the street while bystanders along the sidewalks paused and cars within the avenue stopped. With their cameras and camera phones they recorded the grizzly scene of which he himself saw only faint, passing glimpses of. What he noticed more than that was the lack of guards: no effort was made to secure the scene, to confiscate the body. To keep the eyes of people away. But, then, the spider was a quietly-arrogant demon. And whatever weak transient human beings were up to did not concern him.

Yet: who was going to explain a woman - a woman _armed_ with a sword - falling out of the tower's hundred-floor?

"Keh," he yelped.

That Naraku found his lair was a momentary headache suffered silently and alone away from the public. That he breached Naraku's anonymity was different: now the demon would be burdened with the media and the police. That would busy him a bit and it seemed to be fitting.

Inuyasha caught sight of Inukotsu's sword. He, by reflex more than by instinct, clutched his weapon through his jacket. Since Imperial Japan had banned the use of swords he and his kind had found all sorts of ways to hide them in plain sight.

Past the body and the throng, into the shadows cast by the buildings of Tokyo, he stopped and stared up the length of Naraku's tower trying to gaze at its peak. But the space that would have been Naraku's office was far too remote to be seen. And even if it were not, the clouds that amassed about it would have blocked the view.

The whole sight of it would have been beautiful if it were not for the horror that lay within.

With his hood wrapped about his arm he was forced to keep his hands on his cap. That thin, form-fitting layer of canvas was what let him blend into the world. Without it there would be no place in which to hide. Anyway, he needed to get out of the area and fast. Kohaku was still a factor and that promise loomed overhead. Maybe if Sango were alive and saw what had become of her brother maybe she might have relented but he gave his word and a promise made must be kept.

He walked about the city looking more distracted than usual. Not having a home to retreat into, having Kagome to guard against, he would be forced to act. But he was exhausted and injured and would be useless. At times like that there were friends he counted on until he resettled but he did not like the idea of imposing upon friends.

The thought always occurred to him that Kagome would be safe if he came up to her and stayed at the temple. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized she would not be safe, ever, _as long as he lived._ Wanting to be with her was selfishness. Protecting her was not. As long as they maintained that distance she was anonymous and that advantage would be what saves her.

He did not see it. Lost in thought, he was oblivious of it. The district became _familiar_ - but superficially. The sights and sounds of the present stirred memories of the past - but faintly. It was the teenagers who walked about the streets in their uniforms that peaked his attention. The boys with their black suits; the girls with their green and white sailors. Until that moment, that instant, he did not notice the mistake: that he was nearing Kagome's high school.

Inuyasha stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. People behind him brushed past him as they continued onward. Most of them were girls. Black-haired girls. He could not stay. He could not risk failing her twice that day.

While no one watched he crossed the street and fled into a park. Except for a few parents and children here and there the place was empty. And there - to rest and to think - he sat.

To be sure, it was not the park where that last, murdered victim was found. It was small, tiny and did not have a pavilion. It was cut into two parts, each astride a rarely used street.

The upper portion was composed of green lawns, concrete paths and wooden-iron benches. At the center stood the building that housed the bathrooms. Along the front perimeter were bus stops; along the back perimeter were alleys and driveways where men busied themselves with their work.

The lower portion - where he found himself to be - was larger with more grass and sand than concrete. It was where the children played: there were the swings and the slides and the see-saws. There were animal sculptures, too, an elephant and a giraffe: they were hollow to let kids inside and they were pockmarked to let them climb.

Inuyasha laughed thinking about what it would be like to take kids into that park. He would be too big to enjoy the games along with them but the idea would not be to join them, it would be to watch them and see them happy, smiling. Carefree. And maybe, just maybe, hold onto Kagome's hand as they watch their children. He would not leave his children and their mother; he would be there to protect them.

Would it be too late?

He relaxed and planned - and a ball rolled by his feet. A pair of kids, too young for school, ran after it. Their swift motion knocked a breeze about that ruffled through his hair. He recalled his hat and pressed it back onto his skull. He watched the boys struggle with the ball that seemed to be too big for their hands. He sighed: he accepted that it was too late for him but it was not too late for his children. It would be different form them: they would be only a quarter-demon and normal in almost every way in every one's eyes. They would not have to be a part of the trap of the demon-world. In fact, it might be possible to escape Japan altogether.

He wondered what it would be like to live in America or in Australia, places free of Naraku's grasp, expansive and isolated enough that a man could be private.

And then a voice shattered his soul. He stood upright - his ears within his cap standing erect and alert. He stared off into the distance, where kids ducked about the animal sculptures and swung and slid and see-sawed. He kept his eyes away even as the voice kept nearing and nearing.

_What if she sees and knows?_

He produced a cell phone, thinking - hoping - if she saw that in his hands she would not imagine it to be him. He studied it, unfolded it - its LCD display glowed an indigo hue - there were messages yet to be heard. He cradled it within his palms looking as if he would be making a call.

Off of its shiny, mirror-like surface, he caught a glimpse of Kagome. She looked alive surrounded by girlfriends. Nervous - at the point where his hands were shaking - he placed the cell phone back into his pocket and stood. He walked through the park, across the sandlot where the children played. The two boys passed him as they tossed the ball back and forth to each other. One of them tripped and he paused to raise him by the shoulder. He did not know if the mother was nearby and did not ask - he kept walking, patting his coat as he fled. He did not notice that the kid saw into his jacket onto the hilt of the Tetsaiga.

The boy smiled and whispered into his friend's ear something akin to `samurai' but the other boy was not interested - the ball was more fun to play with than the samurai.

Inuyasha found a building whose cellar doors were ajar. Looking from side to side, ensuring there was no body around, he slipped into the basement. He ran onto the nearest stairs. It led to the lobby of a small yet normal office building. At the ground floor the lone, old elevator brought him to the top floor. There, along the back wall, a ladder accessed the roof. Even injured he did not hesitate - he had been climbing ladders all day long, doing it again would be harmless. And without noticing it he was atop the roof, walking toward its edge and staring down at the park.

In the space of time through which he lurked about the building little changed. Kagome was still within the park surrounded by girlfriends. And near the back of the park, sitting on a bench and reading a book, was Hojo. Every so often he turned his eyes from the book to her.

There was the day she went into the well - she said that she was going for supplies, that she would be back by the hour - and as day ebbed into night she did not return. And when his impatience got the better of him, he jumped into the well and discovered the horror of horror that he could not travel through time.

And ever since, for five hundred years, he wondered why. Did the well stop for her too? Or did she stumble into another era, more remote and distant than the feudal time? Or did she get so mad at him that she opted to go and never to return?

His friends also wondered if his bad temper finally drove her away - they did not say it, they thought it - and it haunted him, for half a millennium, he could not answer the question.

But by that time his relationship with Kagome was different He was not the half-demon he used to be. She taught him by her pure and kind sincerity that there could be happiness in the world for him if he wanted it. Just as he wished could be loved if he let her.

With her gone he could have become bitter; but when he saw the sadness of his friends he did not want to add to that pain. He grew to be calm, clear-headed and dependable. He smartened up, learned to listen and to appreciate the subtly of life. There were many times he could have mated, many females and males thought him attractive. But as if to prove his penitence and his loyalty he denied himself the pleasures of this world because if he could not enjoy it with her, he would not enjoy it all.

The evolution of Inuyasha Taisho - for he learned to accept his father - was a long, sad torment.

Until today he did not believe it was anything he did that effected the change with Kagome - and he could have been right in so far as it was not anything he did _in the past_ that imperiled the relationship.

He stared at Kagome across the distance. What it would be like to hold that girl. The way he held her five centuries ago by the side of the well. He recalled it often, it was the first time, ever, he did _that_ with a girl. There were painfully few such moments. He held her like a man holds a woman. Feelings, warm and inviting, surged through their bodies. Her heart pounded and he heard it; he grew hardened and she felt it as he drew her close against his body. He ached with such passion that he feared she would be hurt; she was like a flower within his palm pressed tight against his flesh its petals breaking off. He often wondered if with just a little more effort what that tenderness might have evolved into. But at that time he thought to have her would be to doom her and he scarified himself and threw her into the well, back into her era where he imagined the tentacles of Naraku did not reach.

It terrified him to realize all the while he could have sent her into her very own destruction.

Until today he did not understand it and when the possibility occurred to him his heart sunk like a stone: maybe now he knew why she did not return.

Naraku was not defeated, the jewel was as incomplete then as it was now, yet everything ended in the middle of the action. Could the cause have been so simple as Kagome's death? But he could go through the well, even _if_ she were killed, there was no reason why he could not go through the well. It could not have been so easy!

Maybe, whatever power caused the well to work at all judged its intervention was unnecessary and ended its porting through time. If that wee true there would be hope: for the death of the well did not mean the death of Kagome. And why would the time-travel not be needed - unless - maybe, the time-travel became unnecessary because the only way to defeat Naraku and gain the shard was not found in the feudal Japan but in the present time.

Kikyo wanted Naraku to become a full-demon because only then, she felt, could he be destroyed by her methods.

Was that the key: to let Naraku become powerful?

And he was powerful. He ruled at the top of a tower that soared so high into the sky he fancied himself to be a god. Yet he was so grotesque and mutated he hid himself away. He could not escape that office! At his most powerful it was as if he were at his most vulnerable.

"Keh!" _What, then, did he rule?_

Onigumo made a deal with the devil. He wished to rule the world and it was granted. He ruled but only from his cell and he cannot, ever, venture out into the sun and enjoy it. He was a spider trapped by its own web.

Kagome approached Hojo. The boy reacted awkwardly to the girl. But they chatted about her illnesses, homework and tests. Soon a bell rang - lunchtime was over - and the students hurried back into the high school.

A desolate feel clung to the atmosphere as Inuyasha found himself alone. The park, the whole, entire area, was deserted and quiet. The skies were gray, cloudy. The sun, in its autumnal habit, was past its peak and sinking, falling.

From his pocket to his hand he secured the cell phone. He dialed the number of an old, trusted rival. Although neither Inuyasha nor Koga could be near Kagome, for Naraku knew their scents, the wolf would have to be told. And he needed that lupine help to enact a plan of his own. And he would have to call Shippo, too, to make the final arrangement.

"_Captain Takeshi and his detectives will be getting what's coming to them."_

The spider was not the only demon who knew how to plot and scheme; the trick would be to get the police to see things _his way._

He did not trust the police to keep Kagome safe - he did not give that job to any body - be she would be safer if the killer were out of the way. He would tell them what they needed to know about the true nature of the murders and the killer. But that would not be easy. And he had to be careful _who_ he chose to tell the truth to. It would have to be someone who could be trusted.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Kev and Kano did not sit through the end-credits of "The Decadent Return of the Spider Queen And Her Panty-Sniffing Scourge." Just the title of that late-night b-movie foresaw cheesy effects and terrible acting. And the stereotypical plot-contrivances large enough to drive a truck through. But it was, always, a great deal of fun and a very pleasant way to pass two hours. Very pleasant compared to their jobs and the things they saw in their jobs.

Walking through the crowds assembling about the front of the theater, Kev offered to buy Kano something to eat - popcorn, candy - while they walked home but he refused.

_Come to think of it,_ he noted_, Kano ate very little at all._

"You're a little too thin to be on a diet, you know," he teased tapping the back of his friend's shoulder as they stepped out of the building into the street.

It was night yet the city was as thick as ever with crowds. It was cold, too, and the people with their coats made formidable obstacles along the way. But Kev's mind was not focused upon the streets and Kano's thoughts were elsewhere altogether - and had been since the movie finished. He was nervous, edgy and that bothered Kev because he had never, ever, seen his friend act like that.

"You _are_ all right, aren't you?" Kano nodded. "No, you're not." Again he held onto Kano's shoulder and his touch did not waver. "I know you too well. Something bothers you - I know it - I just hope it wasn't that movie."

"It was an OK movie," he smiled. A genuine smile. And squeezed onto the hand that clutched his shoulder. "I always like it when I'm with you, Kevin-san."

Through the bleakness of the night it would have been impossible to see the man blush. "Well, I always like to be with you, too. Outside of that office, away from that job, I only ever really live when I'm with you." Now it was Kano's turn to blush. He made a hesitant, tentative sound if he were about to speak but Kev interrupted mid-syllable: "That's the way it's been since I've come to Japan - and met you."

"I hope that'll always be that way."

"You sound like that'll change, Kano."

Oblivious to being surrounded by a mob - or - despite being surrounded by all of the people they felt as though they were alone, anonymous, and their intimate contact lingered as if they were unafraid to be exposed.

"I've been, difficult, haven't I? Kevin-san, after all of these years, why haven't you left? There must have been others who caught your eye. Maybe. They would've been easier to get along with than me."

"Stop that," he whispered, stopping and turning to face Kano. They stood before a supermarket whose doors had been shut hours ago. By then, by that time, the number of people walking about that part of the city was dwindling. "Is that what bothers you? Kano." He tried to hold his friend's hands but just caught the cuffs of his sleeves instead.

Kano navel-gazed, it seemed, embarrassed to see him face to face.

"Look at me with those eyes of yours," he stammered through that heavy, American accent. Kano angled his face up but the shadows of the night cast his visage in the darkness of oblivion.

"It's important that I trust you. Everything depends upon it."

Kevin squeezed his friend's wrists through his cuffs and let his grip slip until they touched skin to skin.

"Who was it? Hm? Who was it that gave you such a high opinion of man?"

"It's not like that, it's different."

Kano squeezed Kev's hands; his nails were sharp but their prickling did not bother the man.

They walked together, ambling randomly through the streets just to be together.

At a corner they stopped to wait for the light to change. Kano adjusted Kev's collar. Despite their angst they shared a deep love and respect for one another that revealed itself through such, subtle intimacies.

"I'm different, Kevin-san."

They crossed from one corner to another; Kevin put an arm around his friend's shoulder, ruffling his hair.

The area of Tokyo through which they trekked consisted of a large park surrounded by small buildings. The buildings were vacant, _dead,_ except for a few, dim lights near their roofs. The park was full - but not crowded - with very oddly-dressed people. People with multi-colored hair, Mohawk-shaped spikes, or just plain bald. They wore leather, chains, tattered jeans and rough shirts to match their tough appearances.

But they did not rush through the scene; they kept their pace slow and steady for their eyes were not fixed upon the world in which they trekked.

Kev was looking at the sidewalk, holding onto Kano's arm, when one of the youths stopped him. The intrusion was startling but his heart did not skip a beat. He was dumbstruck, wondering what were the man's intentions - stopping him like that - but as he blinked as he saw his face through the streetlights he laughed.

"Jako'," he said, extending his right hand from Kano to him - who, realizing it was the foreign gesture, mimicked it.

"Yeah, man, I saw you on the TV. You're going to be famous, huh."

Something about the way his two-toned hair lapped about his shoulders, something about the stumps of ears poking through those strands inspired more than a bit of fear in Kano.

"God I hope not - I'd like to walk the streets without getting stopped all of the time."

"I know what you mean," he winked. He gave the detective's left arm a light punch. "Just be easy with me next time you arrest me, OK? Don't let your fame get to your head."

Kev smiled _cynically_ and Jako' chuckled _deviously_.

After a few, more words the man walked away into the night.

Kevin, amused, stopped and reminisced. "Jako' was the first guy I arrested back when I was just a cop. He's not a bad guy, for a criminal, I guess." Kano smiled, laughed. "There, that's the sort of thing I like. That smile. That laugh. So, you're different, huh?" Kev spoke with a teasing lisp.

They reached another corner: Kevin wanted to go one way, his friend wanted to go another way and he submitted as if by instinct following his friend without protest.

"I'm a cop, you know, I _notice_. And I already know."

"You - know," Kano's heart skipped a beat. He wanted to keep it together but his gait slowed into a crawl.

"Of course I know. Didn't I tell you?" He whispered, slowly and carefully though in English: "Something so beautiful just can't be part of this word."

Kano sighed and smiled, realizing the truth of what Kev said.

"You've been kind and understanding. More than I could have imagined. And I know this is what it's like to be in love. Really in love All of my life I've wanted _someone_ to be with me. I've been alone in this world for so long. So long, Kevin-san. Longer than you can imagine."

Kev bowed his head and nodded.

"But it's hard because, if you want to be with me there's so much I've got to tell you. And you won't understand it. You won't like it. You'll judge me, _fear_ me."

"Kano."

They walked through streets unlit and lonely. It was as if they were oblivious of the danger into which they trekked. At least Kevin, whose eyes were fixed either to the ground or to his friend, did not see. Did not notice. Did not suspect. He trusted Kano _implicitly_ and let himself be led by him blindly into whatever, wherever.

It was then that Kev bumped into another figure. It was a quick and dirty encounter and he could not tell too much about what the figure looked like. Except that he - the detective was sure it was a he - was dressed rather skimpy for autumn. To be sure, what he could have seen of the figure's outfit amounted to little more than wolf-like pelts and tanned leather parts of which could have been armor. But it was not the spikes or the chains that most of the punks used. And there was hair, too, long, black hair and he could have sworn there was _something_ _else_ about the figure that just was not altogether right.

He stopped and looked back at the figure - the man retreated rather fast into the jungle of the neighborhood.

"Was that a tail?" he asked, astounded. "In New York City, in Tokyo, at night people are the same the world-over."

"You mean, _freaks_, don't you?" Kev looked at his friend and blinked unsure where _that_ was coming from. Suddenly and very thoughtfully, he spoke like the narrators of old, samurai films delivering lines in that deadpan fashion: "Half this world's full of freaks, I guess."

Kev would have smiled if it were not for the fact that Kano was not like that.

"Freaks? I don't see freaks. People are people, that's all, Kano."

Kano looked at him for a moment, eyes revealing through its tears more than voice revealed through its words that he was happy Kevin said what he said.

"Kano. What is this place?" he asked at last aware of the strangeness of the environment. He thought he saw every part of Tokyo but he did not see every part of that city _at night._ And the character of that place certainly must have undergone a massive transformation once the sun was down and the moon was up. Too many buildings seemed to be abandoned, too many streetlights failed, too many traffic lights did not work. There were no cars - no motorcycles - driving through the streets. There was an eerie, otherworldly silence that clung onto the scenery like a fog. And everything, there the shadows of every alley, there the darkness of every corner, there stirred echoes of deep and secret mid-night designs that alarmed the cop's sense of dread and foreboding.

"Kevin-san, forgive me!"

With a blow that felt like a ton of bricks he tumbled onto the sidewalk and the world entire went blank for Detective Kevin Markus.

* * *

The universe restarted for Detective Kev through a series of impressions First, it was the air: it was humid and thick with a mixture of musk and incense. It was not unpleasant but the atmosphere had a clear and definite lack of oxygen that softened his mind and hardened his body. He could not think as fast as usual and he could not move about any better than normal. Tired and groggy, second, it was the feelings throughout his body. He was slumped against a chair; his head angled back, his arms and legs limp by the sides. As if he had been dropped like a sack onto the furniture. Third, it was the annoyances of the tiny, little bits of sawdust and debris that kept falling into his eyes in tune with the steady, drum-like beat of music that slowly and gradually took form and shape within his ears.

He yawned and sat up. Folding his arms over his chest he detailed what he saw of the world. He was inside a cell-like chamber. Its plaster walls were shiny with a fresh coat of yellow-orange paint. At least, it would have been fresh, were it not for the graffiti scrawled about it. The ceiling was similarly painted and `decorated.' The floor was carpeted by fur pelts and animal skins - beneath that rug, along the outermost, extreme edges it showed to be raw and unfinished hardwood.

There was light, too, but there was not a fixture visible; the source must have been behind and he could not see it without turning.

And that was not everything: there was his chair and before it two sofas by its left and right sides and beyond it one mat. It annoyed him that he did not notice it sooner. Seeing it he tensed. Realizing it he shuddered. He reached into his coat trying to find something but found nothing And he panicked being thus naked and helpless.

For upon the mat sat the figure of what seemed to be a man. Although what he saw of the face was so young and so soft it could have been a woman. The man wore a shirt and blue-jeans and was clad by a ripped, red jacket, the hood of which was wrapped about his arm where the flesh was wounded and bled. A baseball cap adorned his head, its brim leaving most of his features enshadowed. Shoulder-length, white hair also obscured his face.

But truly it was not just the abruptness with which he noticed the figure it was the way it sat: with its legs, its arms between its legs, _it looked like a dog._

Again that was not everything - he leaned forward upset he was _unarmed_ - as the figure was sporting a scabbard and a sword.

"Relax!" growled a voice as a hand, tight and firm, grasped his shoulder.

Kev felt the heat of the hand and wanted to turn around but froze and drew-back.

He angled his head and saw that against the left-wall was a door - and thought that, _if he were strong he might bolt through it._

"What do you want?" ha asked. "Wait - wait - wait!" Now recalling where he was and what he was doing when last he was alert, true fear surged through his body: "Where's Kano?"

"Relax. Shippo is here." Again that hand held tight. Unnaturally tight. "I took your weapon, detective, let's not make a mess, OK? Just, relax."

"Kano!" He struggled against the first grip and the second grip that followed. "What have you done to Kano?"

"Relax!" The command was snarled through a voice that seemed to be more animal than human. "No one's done anything to Shippo."

"Shippo?" He was bewildered: he was asking for Kano not for Shippo. "Who's Shippo? And what's all of this about?"

Through the struggle he failed to notice that the figure upon the map opened its eyes - its wide, amber eyes.

"Shippo! Damn it!" he shouted. The restraints switched from hands to arms. The arms, thick and muscular, clasped him onto the chair. "Inuyasha, didn't I say this would be a bad idea?" The arms were naked except along their elbows and shoulders where they were covered with wolf-like, furry pelts.

"Kevin-san, it's OK." A right hand - a familiar hand - clutched his left hand and its warmth spread into body. He looked and the image of Kano Sozaburo came clearly and cleanly into view. "You must be calm, at peace. Please, Kevin-san, do it for me."

"What's going in, what's happening?" He squeezed his friend's hand and it soothed him to know Kano was all right and safe. He relaxed - and the arms about his chest relaxed, too.

"We want to tell you things. It won't be easy for us to say it and it won't be easy for you to hear it." He looked into Kev's eyes and with that communicated a resigned yet tormented angst that words alone could not convey. "Forgive me," he whispered.

"Kano?" he half-asked, half-uttered. With that lack of oxygen his struggle left him left him breathless and exhausted. "What have you done?"

"We can't let just _anyone_ into this world. We must be careful. Cautious. But I trust you, Kevin-san." He knelt askew the chair and presented the gun to the detective.

Kev took it - and by its weight knew it was loaded. He looked into Kano's face for what was an endless, quiet moment. He did not realize that the arms of the figure behind him had been fully withdrawn. Only through degrees, very gradually, did the thought occur to him that he was not restrained.

"I trust you, but do you trust me?"

He placed his gun into his holster within his jacket.

"I trust you, Kano, _I do_."

"I've got a lot of explaining to do." He stood and stepped aside. "And you may not trust me after I've finished."

"It will be explained," said the gruff, animal voice. The figure moved from the back to the front and stood by Kevin's side. "The truth's a complicated thing, though, I wonder if you can handle it, detective."

Kev did not blink but simply sat up and stared, bewildered. The worn leather, the wolf-pelt. The long, black hair, the tail. It was the man who bumped into him along the street. His bright, blue eyes were unusual for Asiatic men - but that was nothing compared to his long, pointed ears.

"What is this, Kano?" He tried but it was impossible not to be morbidly curious about the man's features.

"We're the freaks, detective," the man answered. "We're also known as demons."

"Demons?" _Demons, boss?_ Kev laughed. "This - is - not entirely real."

"This is real, Kevin-san. Demons are real, we exist. "

Kevin stood face to face with the pelted-stranger.

"Demons are myth."

Yet, even as he spoke it struck him that myths often were based upon facts.

"That's Koga, of the wolf demons," Kano explained, noticing Kev's curiosity.

"Wolf demons? Like, a gang?" he asked, reaching out as if to touch Koga's ears.

"Now, now," the man said, opening his mouth and revealing his fangs for the first time. "I'm OK with you two," he said, pointing to Kev and Kano. "Love is love, right? But - er - those are for the ladies, OK?" He pointed at his ears and, with a laugh, folded his arms over his chest. There was something about his smugness that was almost endearing. "We're a gang of sorts. You're a human - worse, a cop - and that's how you think. Like real wolves, we're family and I'm the head of the family."

"And this is your home, then, Koga?" Kevin asked.

"Yes," Koga replied. "I don't like letting strangers inside. You understand, don't you?"

Kev nodded and approached Kano.

"We demons, we have to live with you humans. Most of us assimilated but some of us like to be demons," he pointed those icy blue orbs at Kano. "And those of us who do, we stay in the shadows, blend into the woodwork with the rejects of your world."

"To blend in." Kev sighed. "And you come out at night when no one notices."

"Yes, detective." Again that laugh. "You get it. You might be brighter than you look."

Kano took Kev's hand and squeezed it. The man looked at his friend - and smiled.

"You know me as Kano Sozaburo because that's the name I adopted. I've lived a long, long time - centuries." Kevin blinked. "I've lived in the human world and I've gone through many different names and identities."

"To blend in," Kevin parroted himself.

Koga chuckled.

"Yes. To blend in."

He put a hand on his friend's shoulder and squeezed, massaged the tense and twisted muscles through the clothing.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be making light of things. You've gone out of your way to - _do_ - this and it's just that it's -"

"A lot? Too much? Huh, heh, actually -" Koga uncrossed his arms and sat along the right-most sofa "- you seem to be taking it well."

"My real name's Shippo."

"Shippo?"

Kevin let the hand on the shoulder wander to the neck - the cheek - the ear. He tried to imagine - if Kano was saying the truth and he was a demon - what his ear must have looked like and what must have been done to it.

Kano - Shippo - smiled and implored the man to sit upon the chair.

"Alright." The detective - recalling his rational, cop-mode - restated the facts as he understood them. "Demons are real and I take it live a long time. Some blend into the world, some don't. But, what do you do, I mean, what -"

"It wasn't always like this," Koga added and was interrupted by the entering of Ginta and Hakkaku.

"The dude's awake, huh?" Ginta asked, he slapped Kev's back playfully.

The man looked up at the newcomers: the men were as demon-like as Koga and dressed along the shades of that wolf-like `uniform' of leather and pelt though without tails.

"He hasn't, like, fainted?" asked Hakkaku.

"The detective's doing OK for a human," Koga answered.

Hakkaku offered the detective a white carton. It was unopened yet a pair of chopsticks were stabbed into it. "Shippo told us you liked Ramen," the demon explained with a tone that was very light and friendly, "but Inuyasha ate it all."

Kevin shook his head into a sort-of nod. "Thank you," he said and took the carton with the chopsticks. He kept his eyes fixed upon the pair - and those ears.

The two smiled and sat behind Koga.

He opened the carton - within it was white, Chinese-style rice. Somehow, someway, looking at it he smiled and laughed_. It was normal._

_Did demons like take out as much as the next human?_

With the chopsticks awkwardly gripped - for Kano, Shippo, was not yet through teaching Kevin the art - he fed himself.

"You are saying it wasn't always like this. From what I know of Japanese history, of demonic legend -"

"Yes. Yes. Once, we were numerous. In those days people were weak and troubled. Disease, warfare. The world was chaotic and disordered. And in that environment we ruled. We were free. We did what we wanted when we wanted. But ever since humans got their acts together and became powerful in their own, particular way, we either adapted or risked getting wiped-out. We blended into the human world - as much as possible - we cut off our ears, filed down our teeth. Built secret, hidden societies and whole, parallel cultures just underneath the surface. Now we are fewer than we used to be, but we are here. Always. We're good at hiding, detective, we've always been that way. We keep to ourselves for a lot of reasons, mostly, because we know people will not accept us."

"But you're people too," Kevin stammered

"No." Koga shook his head, shut his eyes. "We _look_ like you but we _are not_ like you."

"We're, like, a mutated type of human," Kano interjected. "We're advanced. Genetically."

Koga sneered: "To be related to that."

Kano stared at Koga - to Kevin it was obvious that much was left unsaid between them. Most of it angry.

Kano continued: "It's possible for humans and demons to mate. And, over time, there used to be people of mixed heritage." It was then that he looked at that mysterious figure upon the mat - the man who was watching and listening. And keeping very quiet as he studied the human. "Some of us have been known to have relationships with humans. Love is love."

"And that's why we're here." Koga said, crossing his arms. He looked smugly but at no body.

Ginta and Hakkaku gulped and looked at each other.

Kevin could not help but look at that duo and feel a great sense of comfort. For if demons they were they were not menacing. They seemed to be very much normal and - despite that punk appearance - non-threatening. Even Koga was not inhuman.

"Indeed. I could've been told all of this many different ways. You didn't have to knock me out just to talk history. And I'm sure there's got to be a reason why demons would be wanting a human around, anyway."

"Very good, detective, very good."

"You are here because we need each other," another gruff voice spoke up. It was the figure upon the mat who suddenly sat up straight like a man

"You must be that Inuyasha," Kev said and the figure nodded. "Alright, alright."

"You're investigating a series of murders. Of teenage school girls." He breathed - deeply - and paused. "I saw you on the TV - and I know he did too. I know he's responsible."

"He? You know who's killing the girls?" he asked very interested.

"No, not who's killing the girls - I don't know who's doing that yet - but I know who's pulling the killer's strings."

"I see." He rubbed his chin and sat back. "The killer is being control. Like, say, he's a hired-killer?"

"More or less. What I'm going to tell you, Detective Markus, will not be easy for you to hear but you must believe it. _All of it_. Five hundred years ago there lived a man named Onigumo. He was a thief and a lowlife. At the end of his life he suffered a horrific injury - a burn that covered all of his body - when he felt there was nothing to lose, he made a pact with demons. He allowed them to devour his body and in return their souls would be blended into one whole, one entire being. What emerged out of that union was a creature called Naraku."

"Naraku?" Kev looked at Kano, at Koga.

"Onigumo was driven by the lust of power. Only Naraku achieved it. He wanted an artifact called the Shikon no Tama. At that time every human and every demon wanted that jewel. I wanted it too." Here Inuyasha paused and bit his lip. He looked at the floor, at something within the pattern of the rug, at something invisible to the world but not to him. "I will not go into _that_ history. It does not matter. What _does_ matter is that the jewel was fragmented and dispersed throughout the world. Naraku gathered almost all of the fragments - almost all _except one_ - and through the centuries he amassed enormous power."

The detective nodded and leaned back. He wished for a notebook and a pen - for his benefit, not for the world's. He did not imagine he would be believed. Indeed, if it were not for Kano he was not sure he would be believing it, either.

"He's able to devour demons and gain their powers. He grows stronger all of the time. And every time he does his body changes. He reworks it, rejecting those parts that are not good enough, not strong enough. He barely looks like a man now. Most of his body's a mess of things. A bunch of different disconnected parts.

"It's not just because humans won't accept demons that we live in the shadows, it's also because of Naraku. Over the demonic world he exerts extreme power. He keeps it enslaved by the threat of blackmail and extortion. And the fear that he'll expose it. It took demons a long time to learn to live together. They've built lives and they don't want to lose that.

"And don't think you are safe, detective, realms of human power are also under his control. He exists to create trouble for everybody, pitting one side against the other. He's an evil force, a mastermind hatching plots to remove his competitors and cement his influence."

"And what does that have to do with the deaths of those young girls?"

"There's a girl. Naraku wants her dead. He wants her dead for personal reasons. It's a vendetta against me. He only knows part of her name and her description. He does not know when and where she lives. He has hired a man, I do not know who yet, to scour the city looking for girls matching that description."

"He kills them. And Naraku hopes that one of the victims will be the person he's after. But, can't he find a better way?"

"No. He maybe powerful in some senses but not in others. Most of us demons, even the wolf demons, can go out in public every now and then. But Naraku can't do that anymore. He's gained so much physical power by absorbing so many demons that his form's just too grotesque. He can't leave his lair; he's stuck there forever and is forced to rely on lackeys to do the dirty jobs. Not that he ever did the dirty jobs."

"And this girl, who is she?"

"Can I trust you, Detective Markus?" Inuyasha stood, stashing his weapon into his belt. "I know - you find all of this hard to believe. It's hard to take, hard to swallow. But Shippo trusts you. And, maybe, because you love him, you'll see the truth behind what we're saying. But, _can I trust you?_" He approached the chair, semi-kneeling, eyeball to eyeball with Kev. He removed his cap.

Again, Kev blinked. He reached out, tentatively, and Inuyasha let the man touch his ears. His dog ears. The man felt them and their warmth, the pulse that throbbed within.

"It's real," he uttered in English in amazement. "It's different but it's real."

"Can I trust you?"

"I'm a cop, I'll need proof, but you can trust me. I'll do nothing that reveals this," he said.

Inuyasha stood and drew back.

"You promise?"

Kano held Kev's hand: "Kevin-san, it's important."

Nodding to his friend, looking at the wolf demons, at the strange, weird dog-like human-demon hybrid, he nodded: "I promise."

"You'll learn her name when you'll need it."

"But if you tell me now we can watch her."

"I watch her." He turned, folding his arms through his sleeves over his chest. "And no, Naraku sees and knows too much. He has eyes and ears in _every_ human enterprise. You put a cop at her door he will know. We stay away. I, too, keep distant. If I get close - he can sense me, being a demon - and that'll give away her presence."

"Hm," he mused aloud - and sighed. _What did they mean by power? Demonic power?_ Clearly, while he was being told a few things there was much about demons he was not being told. "Just what's your relationship with that girl? She's a human girl, right?"

Koga raised an eyebrow and grunted.

Kano sighed.

"It's complicated, Detective Markus."

"OK. Complicated." Now it was the detective's turn to cross his arms and sigh. "My job is to apprehend the killer. If you can get me rock solid information -"

"You will." Inuyasha put his cap back atop his head. "But I need to know I can trust you. I don't know what Naraku knows. How far deep his influence goes."

Kev nodded.

"I must warn you. You'll face grave danger just knowing what you know. Naraku's not beyond interfering with human lives. There's a woman you know, named Kaede, she's got a power in her right hand you may wish to see one of these days. Naraku cursed her family with that - _wind tunnel_ - it kills the men when they grow old enough. And the women, too, have it."

_That right hand, that gloved right hand._

After the talk ended Inuyasha returned to the mat; he faced the floor deep in thought and meditation. Koga and his group excused themselves to take care of business `upstairs.' Meanwhile the sound of the music returned, accompanied by the banter of crowds muffled and distorted by distance.

Kev stood and sighed - he felt Kano's hand grasp his hand and he squeezed. He looked upon the chair and the carton of rice that lay atop it - it was empty but for the chopsticks within it. He stared and felt Kano's arms hug him - and, turning to face the demon, he hugged his friend back, long and tight.

"I believe what you want me to believe, Shippo," the name hesitated through his lips at it was not familiar. "But I must be allowed to see and know things for myself."

Kano, Shippo, nodded and rested his face against Kev's shoulder.

"Just tell me you don't hate me."

"I don't hate you, Shippo. I can't hate you. All of this explains a lot, doesn't it? It makes sense to me." He rubbed against Kano's ear - and Kano let him feel the roughness of the scar. "It must have been difficult. And I can't pretend I know what that must have been like. But I think I understand that need to blend into the world, Shippo."

The music stopped and for a moment a thick, dense blanket of silence fell upon the chamber.

Kev and Kano walked toward the entryway at the leftmost wall - the man yawned and the demon put a hand against the back of his head, patting its clean, shaven skin.

"You cut your ears," he said, softly, looking at his friend.

"Yes," he confessed. "And my tail, too. I was a fox-demon, with a tail."

He leaned the side of head onto his friend's head - his movements were slowing, retarding as the oxygen was sucked out of the air

"I'm happy you trust me. Shippo," his voice was weak. "I don't judge you, Shippo. Whatever you thought I wouldn't accept, I do. Whatever you thought I'd fear, I don't. I love you. I love you. I -"

Without waiting another instant Kano interrupted the human with a kiss. A shoulder-hug. He laughed and leaned his head against the man's face. "You make my heart skip a beat," he spoke through an excited whisper. "There are things about this business, the girl, the jewel shards, things we can't even begin to tell you about. But in time you'll see and learn all about it. And I'll help you understand. I'll guide you through this world, if you want me to."

Kev smiled, feeling suddenly very light. He said - _something_ - but he could not recall if he said anything remotely coherent.

"You're in danger but I know you'll get to the bottom of this. I trust you _completely_."

"Shippo, I -"

Again, the second time that eventful night, the world succumbed into the oblivious void of darkness and shadow for Detective Kevin Markus.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Stirred, as though from sleep, Kev saw that he was - that he had been - propped against a bench in the middle of a park. He was startled as much by the abrupt change in venue as by the cold, sharp air of the autumn morning. Sitting up and leaning his head into his hand, he thought about it, the whole, damn thing, and wondered if it might not have been a dream. It had the flavor of a dream. The room with that music and that smell. Koga and the wolf demons. Inuyasha and his ears - his dog-ears. And Shippo.

He stood and sighed; lost for a moment of introspection he let the world flyby without a second-look. Without thinking he rubbed the back of his head with his palms - the hairless, naked skin felt rough yet smooth. The rest of his body ached with a terrible, exhausting soreness. And, also without thinking, he brought his fingers to his chin, his lips - he knew, then, it could not have been a dream for the smell of that musk and that incense clung onto his flesh.

"Shippo," he whispered.

_It was real._

Demons.

Myths were grounded by fact; only through the course of time, from one generation to the next, would the stories be transfigured into pseudo-history. If demons were real and were, like Kano theorized them to be, mutated-humans, it would not be an unheard-of possibility. Neanderthals and Modern-Men lived together for thousands of years. Demons, then, would have been just another variety of people. Stronger and longer-lived, they looked different, maybe, they behaved different too and the un-mutated humans feared them. To survive they kept their distance and when that was not enough they infiltrated into the modern-world and created their own, sub-cultures under it.

Little by little, Kev assembled and judged the facts as he walked through the streets of Tokyo. Kano was always different Especially with matters of trust: he let few, if anybody, into his life and that was why it was special between them. Why he knew his friend would not play with his mind like that. Emotionally, he was older and wiser than he looked; he tended to be very shy and calm but every so often here and there he expressed moments of childlike-excitement. Physically, he did not expose any skin below the neck except for hands and arms; he did not like to be touched about his legs, from the knees to the feet. And it made sense, did it not? If there were characteristics about his body that surgery alone could not mask.

He could not have revealed himself without establishing a deep bond of trust -

_After the talk ended Inuyasha faded back onto the mat and Koga and his gang excused themselves. He looked at the chair and at the carton of rice that lay atop it - after everything crashed down upon him it seemed to be the last, coherent fragment of normalcy left in the world. No! Wait! There was another -_

_Kev felt Kano's hand grasp onto his hand._

_He looked at the man - who, after all, was a fox-demon - and they squeezed their grips into each other's. That contact was the realest-thing left in the world. That one, simple gesture carried with it the weight of love and intimacy._

Without stopping home he walked from the park to the precinct; maneuvering through the crowds he could not help but wonder:

"_Half this world's full of freaks, I guess."_

All the while, as he thought about the pieces of the puzzle, as he trekked through the mob, he examined the people more clearly now than before. Testing as if trying - and failing - to spot those who were and those who _were not._ Whose ears were a bit off. Whose smiles openly masked filed-down fangs.

How many people were people? How many `people' were `demons'? Physically, they could be altered and mixed perfectly, flawlessly into the world. Biologically, with their extreme strength and lifespan, their true-natures could not be totally hidden forever. Neither Koga nor Inuyasha told him as much but he surmised the possibility himself that, from time to time, demons were forced to retreat. And get away from the world and from those within it who knew them by their human identities and _wait._ _Wait_, by the gods, for how long until they would be forgotten?

"_Just tell me you don't hate me."_

"_I don't hate you, Shippo. I can't hate you."_

_He rubbed against Kano's ear - and Kano let him feel the roughness of the scar._

"_Whatever you thought I wouldn't accept, I do. Whatever you thought I'd fear, I don't. I love you -"_

"How can I hate you, Shippo?" Kevin wanted to say more, much more, then he had Kano's ear now he had the air to speak into. "In what kind of universe can I hate you? I would not want to be in that world."

"_You cut your ears," he said, softly, looking at his friend._

"_Yes," he confessed. "And my tail, too. I was a fox-demon, with a tail."_

_There was shame mixed with the confession; the tone of voice was so soft, so defeated._

"_I know Inuyasha doesn't judge but I know demons like Koga do. They look at me like I'm some sort of freak."_

_Kev kissed Kano's lips, feeling the stumps that were left of the fangs and knowing, for the first time ever, he was kissing something that was not human - and loving it. Wanting it. The kiss that started with a simple, light peck became more and more passionate and ended when he himself broke the contact to whisper into his friend's ear:_

"_You did what you did to survive. I don't judge you, Shippo, I don't hate you and I don't judge you. That's just the way it is and you'll have to get used to it."_

_He broke the hug and just looked at Kano, just looked and smiled, and Kano smiled, too._

"_You make my heart skip a beat."_

How many lives had Kano led? How many loved-ones fled after learning what he was? How many of them remained that he saw their aging - wasting and weltering into death - while he was stayed eternally young?

He loved Kano, truly and deeply. The friendship started because they needed partners to practice their language skills with. Soon they saw each other - informally - while crossing paths as they worked within the precinct and as they trekked about the city. Soon, too, they looked forward to meeting each other that way and it became their routine. Their thing. Walking and talking they got to know each other better and better: Kano loved weird, silly movies and he did, too, he loved exploring Tokyo and Kano did, too.

It did not take long for the scheduled meeting to become scheduled dates - it was a friendship, though, not yet anything -

Kano was always so sweet and so understanding. He never felt judged by Kano. Even his brother judged him every now and then. But Kano did not. _And how, then, could he judge his friend?_

The more they were together the more Kevin realized just how beautiful Kano was. And how smart and how wise. His temperament was everything he wanted when he thought of a mate - and he knew he was in love

He worshipped Kano and in truth their hidden, secret `trysts' satisfied him more, much more than any physical-relationship could have. Those rare, in-between moments when they found the time and privacy to hold hands and kiss, to hug and lean into each other's shoulders. The idle-banter, the small talk, and those countless other small, little intimacies they shared. They got to know each other so much so that their mutual-attraction deepened

In hindsight the clandestine almost forbidden nature of the relationship was obvious. A true, physical relationship was impossible as long as Kano's secret could not be shared. And it could not be shared with people known only for a short while, people who were, more or less, strangers and foreigners. Trust was paramount - he understood that as a general principle but until what was revealed was revealed he would not have fathomed just how overreaching and overpowering the issue of trust would be for a demon.

"_I trust you, Kevin-san, but do you trust me?"_

It required so much understanding and so much patience to bridge that fundamental gap between them. But he trusted Kano and there was nothing else to say about that matter.

If Kano said he was a demon then he believed it. If he said there was a Naraku then he believed it too. But he was a cop and if that Naraku creature was a Napoleon of crime, the chief and principle cause of that recent brash of murders, then it was his job to gather the proof and build the evidence. Was that not why Inuyasha contacted a cop - albeit through a very unorthodox method - was that not why they needed his help? To stop the criminal, to save the girl -

"_I'll protect you, Shippo, all of you, as much as I can, I promise. But I must do my job. You understand that more than they do. And you know what I mean when I say I need proof. To stop Naraku before the killer reaches the girl you are all friend s with I need more than a history lesson. I need something to point me in the right direction."_

It was neither the fear of the demons nor the fear of the difference between demons and humans - only slight, superficial hints of which had been revealed - it was, instead, the fear of the thought that within the world mankind carved for itself were the workings of another, complete universe. Under the surface of things - countries and businesses, nations and traders, the work that progressed from one day to the next - just millimeters below the façade of what he always knew to be real there was a parallel `existence'. Like another dimension. With its own rules and its own social-orders. Where secrecy ruled.

_Naraku, through the years, attained power and influence._

If what Inuyasha said was true and there was such a monster -

For a pure and simple _personal_ reason, a vendetta, that monster was determined to destroy that girl. But with his power and influence, it would be too great a risk to get his hands dirty for what he must have realized was a personal-matter. What if he got a demon to commit the crime? A demon with a propensity for violence maybe a budding, young serial killer? Then there would be no link back to him. It would be as though it was pure-coincidence.

What a sick, perverted plot it was - perfect and flawless.

After all, what would Naraku _- Mr. Onigumo_ - have had to do with a fifteen-year-old girl?

What did not make sense - and what they would not explain - was why a fifteen-year-old girl would be _that_ important to demons five-hundred-years-old. There were whole, other parts of the truth that were being hidden. Whatever it was, it was not Kano's truth to unveil. And he supposed his friend to be honor-bound to keep shut about that matter.

Just how deep would he go into that world? And just how far would _it_ let him go within?

What if it was not humanity itself that drove demons underground - rather - what if it was one of Naraku's plots? Drive fear and hatred between the races and force demons into the shadows. Make them subservient to him with no one outside of that parallel world to seek help and find protection from him.

He reached the front steps of the local precinct and looked up - the building's clean, Spartan façade was a copy of Western design and very modern despite its being one hundred years old.

There would be time for philosophizing later. Now he was troubled by an infinitely more pressing matter - he had to find a way to tell his brother all of what he learned without outing people and without sounding like a madman. He shut his eyes as he stood at the foot of the stairs. As he meditated through calmer, more-relaxed states files of officers and citizens alike walked by him into and out of the field of his senses. He reached into his pockets and felt his gun inside his holder - and there was something -

He examined the contents of his front, left pocket: it was a cell phone. But it was not like the one he carried. And, indeed, he could not remember ever seeing a model like it. It must have been planted there by Inuyasha - _his source._

And then a smile came to Detective Kev's face as he realized he knew exactly how to explain it.

* * *

At the head quarters of Omega Squad, Detective Kenshin gazed upon a map that had been tacked against a wall. He studied it, combed it, and when it failed to yield its secret he turned his eyes from that grid of lines and dots to those files of reports and photographs. And to the still images of surveillance videos that had been taken by officers of the crime scenes just to see, if for whatever reason, the same _person_ appeared again and again. Serial killers were known to frequent their crimes scenes and he agreed with his brother that the murderer was familiar with the area that upon the map was represented by a nearly straight line of black dots.

Ken was bored and more than a bit annoyed. It was well-past morning, the headquarters were bustling with activity, yet he was alone. And he should not have been alone.

The telephone rang and he grumbled as the shock of it woke him. It rang again and he reached across the desktop for the receiver.

"Hello?" he asked into the device. He coughed; he always cleared his throat out of habit. His voice tended to be raspy and artificial when speaking to people over the telephone. "Yes?"

"Ken, it's Captain Takeshi."

"Boss, what is it? Where are you?"

"Meeting with the top brass, again," he answered lightheartedly through that gruff voice of his. "It seems their attitudes changed a bit since last we met. No new leads from the tip line, though?"

"That's right, sir," Ken replied, sounding worn and tired. "We've had no credible leads."

"And where's the kid?"

"Not here, boss."

"Hm," over the telephone he could be heard tapping his head as if thinking. "I need to speak to him."

"Wish I knew where he's at, boss." He explained: "I know he and Kano went to the movies last night. But that's the last I heard of his whereabouts. And Kano isn't in; it's his day-off."

"Hm," he sighed and paused. "When he gets there he calls the cell phone, OK? My cell phone."

"Alright boss, I'll remember that."

Captain Takeshi hung up and Detective Ken hung up, too.

Frustrated and tired, he dropped a folder atop a desk and tapped his fingers upon its pages.

_There were no commonalities between images. It was a hunch that went no-where, damn it!_

"It's too early to be frustrated, isn't it, Detective Kenshin?" a male voice asked as the male figure entered into the office.

Ken squinted at the figure through the dim, gray light. It was pre-noon and though the bright sun shined through the windows the headquarters of Omega Squad were moody and somber. "Hideki. And I didn't think Sigma Squad got up _this_ early."

The two men stood, bowed, and sat across each other with the same, cluttered table between them.

"What brings you into this side of the building?"

"Just wanted to see how it's going with you." He scanned the files, the papers, the images, he chuckled when he saw the map. "Been making progress?"

"I wish. We know as much now as we did last February. _Nothing_."

"Damn shame. I'm surprised the press -" he sneered "- hasn't hounded the department until now. They are slow, aren't they?"

Ken smiled - and nodded.

"I've got problems of my own and it's so fucking frustrating, man." He leaned aback and rubbed his forehead. "I need a friendly face to yell at for a bit."

"Your cases from the other day, you mean?" Ken asked, leaning into Detective Hideki.

"Yeah," the man answered, speaking through the sides of his lips. "And those freaks."

Kenshin laughed, leaning his shoulder and angling his head: "Let me get this straight: a tiger, er, in the middle of Tokyo, mauled a guy to death?"

"That's what it looks like, man. A tiger. Of course - it's an abandoned part of town - who knows what lurks about, right? We searched that warehouse with a fine-toothed comb. Nothing. And the victim could not be identified - not that we showed off the freak's mug, not with that look in -" he leaned into the detective and said "- you know, we found the guy armed with a sword."

"I heard about that." Ken nodded and added: "Guess he wasn't that good or he'd be alive and we'd be collecting animal parts."

Hideki laughed at the image. "Guess. Still, it's weird, _really_ weird. I don't know about you - you Omega-types aren't like us Sigmas, we're the `X-Files' of the Tokyo PD - heh, heh, I've heard stories about bodies like that. Found all battered and clawed-up and with swords nearby."

Ken angled his head, again, and noticed that his friend's voice got softer and more deliberate.

"Swords. I don't get it. I was reading through unsolved case files from the turn of the century and it's like every ten, fifteen years a body like that turns up. The mauling, the slicing - and the sword. And that's not the _weirdest_ thing, either," he emphasized the word with a tap upon the desk. "And then there was the _other_ body we found later that day. I guarantee you haven't been told about it."

"You found another body? Around the warehouse?" Ken sat upright, shaking a finger as he thought and added: "wait, I heard Medic Kaede talk about another body but I have to admit I -"

"Female. Falls two-thousand feet and dies."

"A suicide."

"Falls two-thousand feet - in the middle of the day - from the top of a building so mysterious and top secret, get this, we weren't allowed to approach the guards by the front-doors. I mean - one of their own whatever - tumbles through a window and dies and they act like they don't give a shit."

"What about the investigation? You'll need to know who she is, where she worked - who was with her, who saw her last -"

"Yes, yes, basic police procedure." He sat back and slapped his knee. "Every time I tried to enter that building, to call and question anyone inside, the brass denied me that authority."

"That's fucked up, Hideki," Kenshin stammered a curse of his own.

He pointed at the ceiling: "I tell you, someone up there is _freaked._ It's big, _big_. The female, she was armed with a sword, too. And it was the same, exact kind of sword found by the male. The faces even looked alike Kenshin," here he wheeled the chair close to the detective. "I told you, I've heard stories, and you know I'm a good listener." Ken nodded. "Those files I read - I wasn't supposed to be looking at them - they're top secret. But I got them from a friend with connections. Kenshin, what if I told you that every so and so many years there's - like - a convention of freaks amassing in Tokyo? They come here armed with swords to kill each other. Who knows how it works. It could be like a tournament - they battle each other and their weakest lose their lives. What else can it be? What else?"

"But Hideki - listen to what you say - if it's true, then, there's an eighty, hundred year-old man, a sword-wielding, claw-wielding animal loose through the streets of Tokyo battling it out with the these weird opponents armed with swords and claws too. I know all about your freak-theories, old man, and you have to admit this one tops them all."

"It's ridiculous - I know that - but look, I wasn't the first detective who's hands were tied by higher-ups. The crimes were unsolved because the investigators were stopped by the men in charge of the department. For decades there's been a conspiracy within the PD that purposely - even viciously - covered-up and clamped-down the investigation of these crimes. I don't know how far up the food chain it goes but it goes pretty damn high, Kenshin. And what bothers me - and what should be bothering you two -" now they got so close Hideki spoke directly into Kenshin's ear "- you know I'm a good listener - there are folks high-up terrified that you and your brother just might solve those murders."

Kenshin blinked and eased back.

_Those murders - of the serial killer._

"Hideki, you can't be serious. It's our job - I mean - it can't be swept under the rug."

"Just to warn you guys; you've watched my back, I've watched yours."

Ken sighed. And asked: "What building was it? The one the female jumped out of."

"Corner of thirty-fifth and fifth. It was called the Kikyo Building."

"The Kikyo building. I admit, I've never heard of it."

"Me too. Oh, it's beautiful, but for the life of me I can't remember seeing it before. Must have been around a long time too `cause I can't remember watching it be built either. And yet it's one of the tallest buildings in Japan."

* * *

Medics Kaede and Musashi entered into the morgue at the basement of the precinct. The immense, examination room was arctic cold and lit only by the soft, smooth blue light emitted through the computers. There was a hum about the air - it was the drone of the freezers. The freezers that preserved the bodies. The Bodies that were kept about the rear of the chamber inside lockers built along its far and distant wall.

Kaede always shivered when she visited the morgue but that was just the effect of the cold, bitter air. It was not death - that did not ever, really, bother her - death was such a constant of life, _her life_, that it became like another member of the family. And it was not like an idea that a child could not understand it was very real and physical because she could see it, feel it, that hole in her right hand.

It was the ancient curse of the demon Naraku inherited by all of the offspring of one, certain monk whose name her godfather, Inuyasha, insisted was Miroku. Her father died of the hole growing and enveloping his body. Her mother also died - at childbirth - and though it was not related to the wind tunnel the fact she was forced to birth within a demonic temple was related to the curse.

Hers was a necessarily small family by blood but she grew up with a lot of family by extension. There was Shippo and Inuyasha. And the wolf-demons - she was tormented by the crush she felt for them especially their leader Koga who was no where near as rough as he seemed to be. There was actually a very warm and tender, almost romantic side to the demon. But he was too much like family -

"Medic Kaede?" asked the old man Musashi, poking the young girl's arm. He had been a medical examiner for fifty years and the chief coroner for ten years. "I thought memory problems were for the aged! Remember what we're doing, right?"

"Yes, yes, of course," she patted the side of his head. The old man was much shorter than she but very spry and nimble for a man of almost-eighty. And just about as flirtatious with the opposite-sex as she was. "Old man," she said - that was her private, pet name for him. They were close. "Turn on the lights, it's time!"

Musashi flipped the switch and turned on the lights.

Kaede approached an empty operating table. She donned her shoal and washed her hands - carefully concealing her, defect, her curse. One day the old man got very annoyed with the way she washed her hands - and she showed him why she did what she did and that was the end of that. He was, she learned, understanding.

Scared but understanding.

Gloved, with her hair caught by a net, she stood by the table, ready and waiting.

"This is what it comes down to, old man," she smiled as she saw the rows of shiny new instruments Musashi had prepared and placed for her upon the wheeled, side bench.

"You like this part of the job a little too much, you know." He did not call her by name, rather, by terms like `you' or `girl' or any number of other names that came to memory. Often names of lovers. "Remember, it's not the parts but what you do with them that counts!"

For a man that age he had a strong, stern voice and she enjoyed hearing it immensely. Sometimes - not always but sometimes - she `messed up' just to hear him yell at her with that voice. There was something about pain - there was something about liking pain - that was strong in her family.

She saw him open the seventeenth drawer; she saw him pull-out the inner tray -

Even ten feet away she sensed something was wrong

She approached the tray and threw the cover back - _it was empty_.

"Maybe it's not the seventeenth drawer?" he asked more than a bit dumbfounded.

"But it's that female victim from the Kikyo Tower. I placed the body into the try myself." She removed a tag from the face of the drawer and showed it to him. Indeed, it was her handwriting, it was the Jane Doe for the Sigma Squad Case 0578. "The Kikyo Tower victim."

"Well, then, someone must have taken the body," concluded Medic Musashi through a veil of confusion. "Check the logs, girl!" he wagged a finger at her - she retreated onto a rack by the computers as he slid the tray back into the refrigerator.

He walked up to her - she looked at him -

"I don't get this, old man, we could've been told! Isn't that the procedure? The body wasn't lost or misplaced. According to the logs it was removed this morning by a doctor" She pointed toward the last entry upon the books. "I can't read that handwriting, it's, too, old."

"And what do you think, girl? And old man should be able to read an old writing? Let me see that," he took the ledger, running his finger across the entry. "Dr - Ko - _Kohaku!_ My word. Oh, my world."

He stood upright, backing away from the desk and from the books, turning shades of white - she had only seen him that way once.

"What is it?" Her tone was a soft, whisper of a voice. "You know this doctor?"

"Know him? No, no, no. I don't know him, Kaede," he mumbled and she blinked - it must have been bad if Musashi was using her name. "Well, doesn't this take me back? I've seen that name, Kohaku, a long, long time ago. And it was written the same, exact way, too, with the same, exact writing style. I'll be right back."

And away he sprinted - out of the morgue into the archive.

Kaede sighed and raised her right hand, alone, onto her chin as if in thought. She reached for the telephone and contacted Detective Hideki - but he did not answer. She thought about going upstairs and meeting him personally to give him the bad news, fact to face, that the body had been removed. Until she looked again at the ledger and was shocked: not only had that Dr. Kohaku taken the female `Kikyo Tower' victim, he had taken the male warehouse victim, too. Suddenly, she, too, got white-faced and weak and already she suspected she knew just who - and what - was responsible.

_Time to call Uncle Inuyasha_, she thought aloud.

And then the old man returned with an equally old ledger in tow.

At once - and with that voice - spun a yarn: "I had just graduated - college - and landed a cushy, weekend job here with my uncle. He was chief coroner for the city of Tokyo. My duties were to assist with the autopsies. It was not my favorite job, especially, when it came to help the doctors cut up the women. The men, I was OK with it; the women, I could not deal with it.

"And my uncle discovered my weakness. The sick, old man that he was, he arranged for my very first solo autopsy to be of a certain female victim. She had been mauled behind a shipping-yard. Those days there were all sorts of weird, foreign cargo coming into Japan. And everyone wanted to know if it was a tiger or a lion who killed her. The pressed dubbed her `the Cat Woman.'

"I was nervous. Such a high-profile case, you know, to be assigned a lowly technician. And I was scared of my uncle that sick, terrible, sick old man. Well, what could I do? We walked into the morgue. We approached the locker. We opened the drawer - but the tray was empty. My uncle was pissed - somebody lost the body!

"The investigators paid us a visit - and we learned somebody calmed the body. Mind you, girl, the victim's identity was a mystery. But, one way or another, the higher-ups gave the consent and the man took the away the body. I never saw him, I only heard of him, claimed to be a doctor. But he was way, way too young - those days it was different - anyway, he signed for the body himself."

Musashi opened the logbook onto a page that dated 1939 and tapped the entry.

She looked at it - at the signature - and compared one with the other, side by side.

"Dr. Kohaku."

"The same exact man."

"And look, old man, he signed for the male warehouse victim too."

"I didn't see that."

"What do you remember about that woman you should have autopsied?"

"Well, lots of things. She was supposed to be my first, you know," he smiled, being taken back. "She was beautiful. I know, I know. A strange thing to be saying about a body - but - her face, girl, her face was just out of this world. Even that gash through her chest could not spoil the beauty of those eyes. Those eyes. Yes, _that_ I remember more than anything. There was something like not-human about her eyes. But it's hard to say - it's been sixty years - and people, you know, aren't supposed to be that perfect and flawless."

"But she was called the Cat Woman because?"

"The investigators found a claw embedded inside her chest. Of course, the press ran with it, but to be honest - from what I recall - it wasn't big enough to be a lion's or a tiger's or a bear's. It was more like a dog's claw than anything else."

She raised an eyebrow - and wondered how far luck could be pressed:

"And I bet - if I showed you her face - you'd remember -"

"What she looked like? I maybe a million years old but there are things you don't forget, if you know what I mean."

Now it was Medic Kaede's turn to play show and tell. Out of the desktop clutter she produced a report. A report whose existence was not reflected anywhere within the log-books. It was the only thing left that proved there was a victim at the Kikyo Tower. She opened the folder and removed one, single image - of the female's profile - and gave it to the old man.

He seized it and sat without uttering another word.

* * *

Detective Kev stumbled into the head quarters of Omega Squad and his very abrupt presence - shaken and disheveled - halted the activity within. The silence was like a wall so overpowering, so impenetrable, that spiders could be heard spinning webs. The boss inside his office looked at him through his door; officers and civilians stopped what they were doing and stared. And then, just like that, as if the switch was flipped, the business of police-work resumed.

"Kev? What happened with you?" Ken was about to berate him about being late, about not calling - and about a bunch of other things more personal than professional. But, looking at his little brother, panic sent a shiver of fear through his body: He and Kano had been out in a date - what if they had held hands at the wrong place, at the wrong time? What if - "You're all right, aren't you? Little bro -"

"Kenshin. I got to tell you something. Come on." He grabbed his big brother's arm and dragged him away from the desk - and from the various, evidence files open about it top.

Ken protested but Kev's force of action was sudden and unexpected. It was not possible to fight it and before he knew what was happening he was lifted off of his chair, towed away from his desk and his work and heading into the break room.

Kev shut the door - he stopped to catch his breath and adjust his coat, only then realizing the haggard nature of his crazed appearance.

With a shaky, nervous whisper the professional-looking detective asked: "Did something happen last night? Something about the date, I mean - I mean - you're all right, aren't you?"

But the exhausted-looking detective was not listening. His attention was focused elsewhere: to the walls, to the window, to the door. He searched about the small, little room like a Sherlock Holmes desperate for clues but finding nothing. And he was not satisfied.

"It's not safe here. Come on." Again he grabbed his brother's arm - but that time his brother's protests were stronger, firmer. "Please, Kenshin! We can't speak _inside_ this building!"

Alone, Kev exited the break room. Sighing, Ken followed. Through the backdoor-hallway, from the upper-reaches of the precinct into the lower-levels of the garage. A moment later Kev located his brother's car and waited by its passenger's door.

"It's serious, isn't it, little brother?"

"We have to be careful, that's all."

The doors unlocked and the detectives entered.

Kevin walked many, uncounted miles without sleep. And now, inside the vehicle against its comfortable seat, he relaxed almost into a lull. Almost into asleep.

"So? So, Kevin-san, are you going to tell me what happened? And what's that smell - incense -"

"Yes - it's incense - I think they were lighting it. I don't remember, Ken, I didn't see. It was also musty. Look," he sat up and faced his brother: "last night, after the movie, I walked Shi - Kano - home. I walked him home. And, then, I went for a short walk through the city all by myself."

"Seems like it was a bad idea for you - you weren't beaten were you?"

"No. Listen." He paused and collected his breath, his thoughts. His Japanese was too erratic and he slipped into English. "I was approached by a source." He looked squarely at Kenshin. "He wanted to give me information about who might be responsible for the killings."

Detective Ken knotted his brow. "What sort of information?" he asked.

"I can't tell you everything. You wouldn't believe it - and, hell - I don't know the whole story." He looked at his lap, patting his jacket. "I wasn't told _everything_. And I know you'd think it was nuts but I know what I know, big bro. _I was there._ I believe what I saw was true. I am not an idiot."

"Alright. You trust your source."

Detective Kev was adamant about information he could not reveal. He said it did not matter and it amounted to material like: who was his source and why was it secret. And he knew, more than anything, delving into those matters would not amuse his detective brother. His appearance was haggard enough that he looked crazy, he did not want to sound crazy too.

Using the language of a police officer, he `sanitized' the story Inuyasha unfolded. He described Onigumo - alias Naraku - as a modern-day Professor Moriarty. A spider sitting at the center of a web that extended into all facets of life inside Japan. People in government, people in business - _people in power_ - were influenced by his plotting and scheming. He sat atop a building, removed and disconnected from the world; hated and feared, he could not leave the safety and comfort of that lair. He let lackey do the dirty work and that, of course, kept his own hands clean.

Kenshin nodded and added: "Your source's Onigumo sounds like what you Americans call `the godfather.'

"Yes, it's got the flavor of organized-crime."

"Plausible - not probable but plausible. Anyway, what does that have to do with the serial-killer?"

"I trust my source. I believe him. My source is one of those men who hate him and campaign against him. He's a loner, absolutely, not a gang-member. Ken, this goes beyond gangs and crime-syndicates. It's unique. Completely, utterly unique. I cannot wrap my mind around all of it." He leaned toward Ken and, speaking eye-ball to eye-ball, explained: "Onigumo knows about my source and his activities. He knows my source's weak-point is someone very close and important. A girl, fifteen-years-old."

"A girl? Like, a daughter? Family?"

"He did not say what she _meant_. Personally. And he refused to identify her to protect her. Because while Onigumo knows the girl exists he does not know much more about her other than her name and her appearance." He poked Kenshin's arm and smiled as the tale weaved itself together into perfect unison: "Onigumo wants to kill that girl to get back at my source. To affect that end he's hired a budding young serial-killer - or made him - or groomed him."

"A hired gun? Firing at anyone who matches the description of that girl? Ah, eventually he'll hit the target." Detective Ken crossed his arms and sat aback. Looking at his brother - who remained still and silent - he caught his breath and answered: "Sounds fantastic, little brother, like the plot of a cheap novel."

"Kenshin. _You know me._ I am not an idiot. I wouldn't have told you all of this if I didn't believe it."

"Detective Kev," he put his hand onto his brother's shoulder and squeezed. "If you want me to believe you, alright, OK, I believe you. Now - evidence? Proof? Remember we're cops -"

"I know, I know," he confessed, looking away through the windshield. He gripped his hands into transient fists, crackling his knuckles. "We have to be careful, Onigumo has connections - I think - even into the police department."

Ken laughed - and then, very quickly, very abruptly, quieted

"You need rest - ah!" With a finger against his lips he forestalled any attempt by Kev to protest. "I bet you've been awake all night long. You need sleep. Sleep, kid. Contact your source, get him to give you proof. Leads. Our job is to catch a serial killer not to stop a spider-demon mastermind. How about we solve one problem at a time, huh?"

"Alright." Kev clutched about the zipper of his coat _and glared._ "If I've got to sleep to make you feel better, I will. But all the sleep in the world won't change the truth of what I saw. What happened."

"What did happen? What did you see?"

"It involves a lot of people and I cannot talk about it. Trust is _very_ important to those people."

"You cannot talk about it? Even to your big brother, huh?"

"They didn't need to contact me; they did because they wanted me to know. They don't just let anyone into their circle. I'm sorry, Ken, but if they wanted you to know they would've contacted you. I'm sorry -"

"You're tired. And this is what happens to people who're tired. Cop or not. American or not."

Kev chuckled and, again, looked at his lap. "I'll ask my source if I'm allowed to tell you. But until I'm allowed you've got understand the secrecy. I think it's the key to solving this problem. If it weren't, they wouldn't have shown themselves -"

Kenshin raised an eyebrow.

"I think you were right, big bro, the serial killer is a man. And I was right, too, his motive isn't sex. Alright. I'll go home. I'll sleep." He squeezed Kenshin's hand. "I must've made quite a scene - there - didn't I?"

He laughed and mused: "Omega Squad's used to your antics. Actually, it's what makes you normal - isn't it? Yes."

Kev smiled and exited - he walked out of the garage out of sight.

Ken watched his brother leave - and when the figure of the disheveled, crazy-looking American vanished into the city he returned into the office.

"Kev is OK, isn't he?" Medic Kaede asked. She and the old man, Medic Musashi, saw him earlier as he walked up the stairs into the headquarters.

"He needs rest. Sleep. Spent last night awake, heh heh heh."

"Hm, odd, Kano didn't come home until very late last night. Seemed to be tired but all right, though. Maybe they went to a party -"

Ken raised another eyebrow. _When did Kev say he took Kano home?_ "Kevin. He's a very mature person. Always acts older than what he looks. Something happened - but - he needs rest."

"Well - good-luck with that case," she said, kissing his cheek.

He smiled and sat back. "Thanks, I'll need it."

Detective Ken sat at the desk and looked at the map. _What a wild and crazy story Kevin told,_ he thought. But his little brother was mature. And he was a cop's cop. He could not have been that shaken unless whatever he stumbled into was big. Really big.

He put himself into Kevin's position - and concluded he, too, would have reacted the same way. Except he would have gotten a good night's sleep before he told anyone about it.

By the payphone there was a directory. He took it, opened it and searched through its listing. There was an Onigumo. To be exact: "The Firm of Onigumo-MR, Private Interest and Consulting," located at 418 Thirty-Fifth, Suite 1001, the Kikyo Building. His hands lost their grip and the directory slipped through his fingers. His eyes - again - transfixed onto the map. He ran toward it, he reached it and followed the line formed by the black-dots - those places were the killer dumped the bodies. He traced its length _past_ its upper-end and there, just an inch away from the last crime scene, was the corner of thirty-fifth and fifth and _the Kikyo Building._

He circled the spot with a pen.

"Little brother, what did you find -"


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The dungeon.

The pitch black void. The bitter, cold air. The ceiling was low, strutted by teak beams and buttressed by stony pillars. The walls - enshadowed - seemed to be as distant as infinity. And the floor was littered with an inch-thick layer of dust and debris. Sounds of ghostly straining and eerie settling echoed about the cavernous enclosure - the chambers were not part of the building itself, they had been carved out of an air pocket between the very base of the tower and the innermost regions of the earth.

A hatch upon the ceiling was opened and a shaft of white - but not bright - light seeped into the dungeon. It was the light of an obscure, secluded men's room that was the one and only access point into and out of the crypt. A hemp-and-wood ladder was lowered; its excess length piled upon the concrete floor and while it swung a spider crawled through its litter unaccustomed and afraid of the light. Odd that anything natural lived in that environment.

A man descended the ladder. Dress in a black, ninja uniform he could have blended into the scenery were he not under the spotlight beneath the hole. He was so tall - rather, the chamber was so short - his head was but inches away from the ceiling. He reached up through the hatch and from the floor of the rest room retrieved a lit lantern.

When the man turned - the lamplight washing his face - it could be seen that it was Kohaku. The eternally youthful human stepped away from the ladder of hemp and wood into the cavern's bleak and melancholic oblivion. He aimed the lantern toward the hatch and at once an object fell through the hole and landed upon the ground with a low, wet, thud.

Without another word - and as silent as death - Kohaku turned from the hatch and that bizarre nightmarish thing that squirmed and quivered upon the floor beneath it and walked, slowly and resolutely, to the rear of the cavern. There, between pillars, were teak walls adorned with metal doors. Some of the doors were shut. But most of them were open and through their yawning blackness hinted suggestions of their horrifying contents - rooms of unspeakable terror and passages of unfathomable extent that led into catacombs that eyes, human or demonic, had not explored for hundreds of years.

Kohaku stood before one of the doors - one of the shut doors - meanwhile that thing crawled through the litter toward him. Its arms, what could have been arms, with its hands and fingers clutched into the floor and dragged itself inch by inch. The front parts of its body seemed to be solid and sturdy. The back parts, however, were tattered like ripped and shredded flesh and left a trail of fluid upon the litter.

"I prepared the two myself," Kohaku said. He unlocked the door - behind it a spray of a soft, orange light evolved and competed with his lamp yet did not over power it.

The two - the man and the creature - entered. Inside the antechamber was larger than was it seemed to be outside. It contained two large vats of glass filled with a clear liquid - tiny, shimmering bubbles struggling to rise through its volume implied a viscous substance more like gelatin than water. The glow itself emerged from sources - unseen - beneath the glass directed up into the vat through gratings.

There were two bodies suspended within the goop: those of Inukotsu and Kakotsu, naked, clean, and reconstructed as best as possible.

"Kakotsu was very badly mangled and will take longer to heal," Kohaku continued. "But Inukotsu was not as badly injured. She will awaken before he."

The thing - that remained near the man's legs - laughed low and dull.

The keys jumbled about Kohaku's waist as he trekked into the dungeon. So deep the lights of the vats were a distant, dim memory. So deep even the light of the lamp seemed to be swallowed up by the shadow. There was an other-worldly vastness about the cavern's bottomless darkness that space itself was infinitely brighter for the were no stars beneath the ground.

And the air was cold, too, not just physically but spiritually. It could have frozen the soul of anything unfortunate enough to be treading through it.

Another door - another key - it creaked, its rusty hinges peeling and dropping bit by bit onto the already-littered floor. Beyond it the entryway yawned into nothing until he shined the lantern into the chamber. The ceiling, walls, and floor were concrete and plaster painted and clean. At the center of the room was a column - also of concrete and plaster - with a figure chained upon it.

The figure, whose back was facing Kohaku, was propped upright, held still, by the restraints against its writs and its ankles. Its hair was black and shoulder-length. Its clothing was an old, kimono-like robe. First it leaned against the pillar - as if asleep - and then it 'stood' - as if awoken.

Kohaku hooked the lantern onto a chain that dangled from the ceiling. The thing upon the floor lurched toward the light. The light revealed it to be Naraku. He was naked, his hair unkempt swept over his head, around his face, it dangled loose and limp from his shoulders to the ground. The spider-like birthmark upon his back was exposed as were, too, the outlines of all of his muscles, tensing and relaxing as he crawled and stood upon his palms. Below the arch of his back, where his waist would have been, the skin was tattered, the flesh was shredded. Bones and organs protruded from the gap, blood oozed from the wound and left a trail as deep and red as his eyes. He had ripped his torso off his body - two thousand feet above inside the office those discarded portions of his anatomy breathed and awaited reunification.

Kohaku circled the pillar and looked upon its prisoner - Kagura.

"Imagine the power you could have if only you cooperated," he whispered into her ear. The hot breath of his body warmed her cold flesh.

She eyed his face with a sharp, pointed gaze and slithered: "I am Kagura of the Wind, I am free!"

Kagura stood, upright, with her arms wide-apart - her wrists and shoulders were bound onto a bar nailed against the column. Her ankles and knees were tightly-bound too onto the pillar itself. She verged into struggling against the restrains but reasoned out of it. It was not worth the fight, she knew, better to be struggling for control of her mind than her body.

The man drew back from the woman. "No one is, truly, free." He brushed a hand across her cheek neither in a perverted nor sleazy manner but in a soft, tender way.

"Damn you," she spat.

He smiled

Again he leaned into her body and planted a kiss onto her lips. "This, I know, it means nothing to you but it hurts. It hurts me," he whispered. "You know that to be true." He wrapped his arms about her body under her chest. Her restraints rattled. Her muscles stiffened. Holding her tight, he pressed his body against hers. "You force me, you make me, do it."

He kissed her lips again - she kept her lips shut. He stroked her head - her hair, her neck that by nature of the robe was exposed - she growled like an animal and fought against the restraints.

She felt the growing heat and firmness developing between his legs.

Kohaku gasped and pressed his hands against her face, trying to stop Kagura's frantic motion.

"Fight it, Kohaku!"

A tear was forming in the corners of his eyes as he looked at her.

"Kohaku!" shouted Naraku. "Remember!" It was a word the echoed through the voices of a thousand vile and ravenous demons. Its force was strong enough to shatter stone but its effect was to bring the human onto his knees.

Kohaku trembled and held his face in his hands.

"Damn you! Fight it, Kohaku!"

He recalled a moment from his boyhood. It was Naraku's castle. It was the middle of the night - the moon was squirting its eerie, white light upon his face - when he was awoken by the scream. It was Kagura. He remembered the frantic pace with which he followed the scream. Against order, against better-judgment, he bolted through the rooms, deeper and deeper into the castle, until he reached the source there, in Naraku's bedchamber. He shouted 'Kagura!' when he saw it - and reached out to the demon. She reach into him from the floor where she was pinned. And where Naraku savagely thrust his body into her.

'Kagura!'

But it was Naraku's voice that answered: 'Remember!'

That voice and those eyes of blood red lust - and the world went blank and numb.

Kohaku stood and looked at Kagura. With his hands he undid the obi of her kimono and unwrapped the folds of cloth covering her chest, exposing her breasts. He shut his eyes and gulped; he shivered with excitement as though a virgin boy examining his very first adult woman.

"I've always treasured protecting you, Kagura. Keeping you, safe. But I couldn't help you - I - I couldn't help you."

Again he wept and - tentatively, tenderly, like a shy boy approaching a beautiful woman - he eased his hands, his fingers into the space between her breasts. His cold skin was warmed by her intimate flesh. He massaged his palms into her round, firm buds, against her dark, sensitive nipples. He rubbed about her breasts, cupping them, weighing them and, lovingly, squeezing them.

He smiled, almost laughed, at the amazement of the contact; the bulge between his legs formed a tent along the front of his uniforms.

"Damn you, Naraku, do it yourself!" she spat at the demon upon the floor who look on in amused satisfaction.

Kohaku continued the peeling away of her clothing and exposed the space between her legs - her vagina and her short, stubbly hair.

He blinked and gasped as if overwhelmed by orgasm. Could it be that the mind of adult Kohaku had been transformed - by the power of Naraku - into the mind of child Kohaku? Could it be that he was not, in fact, a man five-hundred years old and knowledgeable of women but a boy ten years old and completely, utterly inexperienced? By abuse forced to mimic his master's act - an act he was not, physically and mentally, prepared for?

He stared at her vagina as if looking into something new and alien, as though wondering what to do with it. Her vulva looked like a pair of long, thin lips. He brushed his knuckles about her forbidden, private flesh: it was supple and smooth and felt just like lips. With his fingers and thumbs he parted and stretched the folds of her vulva. With his palms he patted about her stubble and rubbed into her vagina.

"I like how this feels," he stuttered, sounding more like a boy than a man as he played fascinated with the flesh of her lips: pressing his fingertips into their soft, smooth - almost hairless - skin releasing his touch and watching their elasticity.

Kohaku looked up at Kagura. She was silent but the look of her eyes - those angry, evil eyes - spoke of ages of anger and unrepentant-rage.

"Naraku's hurt you - and dirtied you - Kagura. I know. You know, I know. And you know, I know about that dog-demon you love. But do you think he'll want you? Oh, Kagura!" He hugged her, crying into her shoulder. "You want him but he'll never want you. And why would he want you? You're dirty, unclean. And no one, not even your family, will take you now that you're tainted. You're one of us, Kagura! We're the dirty and unwanted. But we have each other, don't we?" Sobbing, he all but fell onto her, into another, deeper hug.

Naraku laughed, more excited now than before: "That's it, Kohaku, remember!"

With one hand he cupped her vagina; with the other hand he grasped her hair, her head. He pressed his lips onto hers and kissed, swaying his body around to conform to the shape of her struggle.

"Remember how it's done, Kohaku! Remember how this bitch's to be treated! Take her, take the bitch, use her like the rag doll she is and throw her away! She's useless, Kohaku, she's nothing! Remember what I taught you!"

And as the spider-demon spoke those words Kagura's struggle cracked. She shuddered. Kohaku's lips that had been warm with life suddenly chilled. And his hands that had been innocent like a boy's, inexperienced and overwhelmed by hormones, suddenly transformed into hard, vice-like grips.

His face drew back. And she saw that his eyes were not tormented: they revealed the nature of the winner of his struggle as they looked upon her with the lust not of a man but of an animal.

She trembled, for the creature that stared back into her eyes with a steely, sharp gaze of its own was not Kohaku any longer.

Snarling with carnal-lust, the figure of what used to be Kohaku dropped the front of its pants and revealed itself. With a move as fast as lightning, it launched itself into the air and landed atop of Kagura, driving its penis through her vagina. Kagura bit her lip as she looked into those eyes - dead and lifeless - as the figure grunted and heaved, thrusting its body violently into and out of hers. A trickle of blood formed between her legs.

All the while the spider-demon watched fascinated and laughed maniacally.

* * *

After telling Captain Takeshi his brother worked too hard and needed to rest, Detective Kenshin opted for a drive through the city. It would not be a relaxing drive - no body drove through the metropolis for a relaxing drive - it would be a different kind of drive. There was a coincidence about events and locations and he did not like that. He was a cop and there was nothing he did not like more than coincidence.

_Happy coincidence_.

Whatever his brother stumbled into, it suggested a deep and grand design - if only he had been more open about just what he saw and just what he learned.

It was not inconceivable that there would be crime syndicates working inside Tokyo - in any large urban landscape - but the way Kev reacted was just totally out of character. It was as if his own, entire world had been turned upside-down. And he started to wonder if he should have accompanied his brother home just in case

What was done was done. Kev needed to rest and Ken needed to dig deeper into that mystery.

It was about three that afternoon when he parked the vehicle at thirty-fifth and fifth and trekked through the streets within the shadow of the Kikyo Building.

Its façade was a white, metallic concrete very shiny and smooth. Almost akin to marble but without the patina. And as far as the eye saw that weird, other-worldly stucco gave it a rather beautiful yet ominous appearance.

Across the distance it could have blended into the skyline. Up close, though, it was fundamentally wrong There was no, one, singular lobby. No main entrance, no front door of any kind of importance. Such as it was, there were doors here and there manned by guards _behind_ the glass. There were no windows for about the first, five floors - the first fifty-feet - above the sidewalk. And not only were there no doors and no windows, there were no shops: most of the larger, spacious buildings housed stores of one kind or another within their bases but that building was Spartan to the utmost degree.

He lived in Tokyo all of his life and he never knew such a building existed. He would have to ask Kev if New York City erected buildings that went unnoticed by its citizens. As improbable as it was it could have been possible.

After walking about the circumference of the base Ken randomly approached an entrance. Coming near, he saw it clearly: it was a pair of glass, sliding doors with a mirror above them and a pad beside them. The pad he did not understand but appeared to be functioning as more of a handprint reader than a keycard reader. The mirror was obviously a camera. Beyond the doors was a foyer adorned with a dark, rubbery carpet. Beyond the foyer the view emptied into a stub of a hallway - its light was bright and its white, plaster walls were unmarred by signs or labels naming the entrance or giving the directory of that floor. There, too, was a chair upon which sat a man - the guard - clad in a black uniform wearing a black beret.

He knocked but there was no reply. He knocked louder and there was no reply. Angered and frustrated, he reached into his coat for his badge - _but_ - Hideki must have gone for his badge too and it did not take him far into the building. He thought about it and then pounded yet louder, unceasingly.

For the first time the guard inside the hallway turned and looked at the detective outside the building.

There had been times throughout his career when fear froze his blood. But never was there ever anything that equaled what happened right then and there. And it was caused by something so simple, so ordinary: just a head, a face, slowly turning as if like a machine within a dream to impress its gaze upon him. But what a gaze! And the look of that stare, the features of that face, it inspired queer, uneasy notions of things _that were not human_. As though before his eyes the figure that was once a man was now transforming, becoming a hideous, demonic monster.

He shuddered and although his eyes remained fixed upon the man, neither shutting nor wandering - yet - from one instant to the next he saw that the guard's face was turned away.

Clutching his chest - and pressing his jacked onto his body - he turned and walked defeated.

"What on earth was _that_ all about?" he asked himself aloud and stopped just upon the verge of melting into the crows that filed by the building.

As he recovered from the shock of it more and more he felt himself wanting to exact a `revenge' not so much against the guard but against _the building_. He wanted to enter and see just what lay within that had to be that protected. But without a warrant, if a warrant could be obtained, the next best thing would be to wait and watch for somebody, anybody, inside to exit.

For what felt to be eternity he walked about the area aimlessly, crossing from one side of the street to the other in efforts to blend into the crowds. All the while he kept an eye along the various, miniature `lobbies' - those sliding, glass doors with its guards - making sure no one left the building without his noticing.

And at the point when it seemed like a hopeless cause - just as he crossed from the far to the near side of fifth - he caught sight of one, particular man leaving the Kikyo building.

Adjusting his coat he approached the man - he was clean-shaven, youthful-looking but obviously more than a little older and he walked with his head low, his shoulders hunched as if trying to blend into the air.

"Hello, sir?" he called, reaching out and touching the man's elbow. "Sir, hello?"

The man looked up at the detective and blinked. He was, it seemed to be, by his expression unused to getting stopped along the middle of the street. By the look on his face, in his eyes - the whole entire posture of the body, warped and twisted - it suggested a figure that was timid, too. And nervous. Unduly nervous.

He reached into his jacket and produced his badge: "I am Detective Kenshin, of Omega Squad."

"You're a cop?" he asked, suddenly, his tone an odd mixture of interest _and relief_. For a moment the man's demeanor changed - a flash of something like understanding and determinism flickered through his eyes - and then his earlier, shy posture resumed. He looked back - Ken looked back, too, into the very glass doors he had had the encounter with the guard - but there was nothing amiss at the entryway through which the man exited. Its guard was out of sight though not out of mind. "My memory isn't what it used to be; but if you're here then I must've called the police and forgotten about it."

Ken was stunned at the statement. "You thought about calling us?" he asked, imploring with a gesture for them to walk and talk along the street. "About the accident yesterday?"

"Accident yesterday?" the man asked sharply surprised.

Ken was confused more than he was stunned and stopped dead in his tracks. "Well, yes, a woman from your building fell to her death. That - _that_ - was what you wanted to tell us about, wasn't it?"

"Oh, no, no, no," he shook his head as he spoke. Wrapping his coat tight about his body - as if struck by a bitter cold breeze - he added: "I don't know about that - woman - falling."

"Then?" Kenshin implored asking verbally and physically with the language of his body.

"I recognized you from the TV. You and that American cop -"

"Ah, yes, the murder at the park." Kenshin smiled, nodded - the man gulped and blinked looking away from the detective toward the concrete, toward his feet. "You were going to tell us about the murder at the park?"

He sighed and gathered his thoughts - he looked as if he wanted to speak but hesitated.

"May I ask your name?" the detective asked.

"It's Zenku. Zenku Mishima." Speaking his name his features gave the impression he could have been just easily confessing a terrible guilt yet coming across a blissful innocent.

"What do you do inside that building?" Ken asked.

"Like? What's my job?" Again he hesitated. The detective nodded. He grimaced, lost in thought and answered: "Security, I guess. They make me look at monitors all day long," he stammered jokingly.

"Security?" Monitors. _And he did not know about the death yesterday_, Kenshin noted. "Alright, Mishima, what did you want to tell us about the murder in the park?"

Zenku stopped and reached toward Ken with a hand. A hand that wanted to draw back as much as it wanted to reach out. As though there were two minds in one body and all the world ever saw from moment to moment was the jumbled, mixed-up interference between them.

With a low, cautious whisper, he spoke: "I may or may not have information about those deaths you're investigating. I don't want to say anything, _here_, especially. If you know what I mean?"

"I do. And, it's, good of you to come forward," he accentuated his words with a bow to reassure the man he, in fact, understood.

"I can't speak at home, either, my sister - she'd kill me - if she knew I spoke to the police about any of this."

"Your sister worries about you, Mishima?" It was not difficult for Kenshin to be impressed by the apparently self-evident fact that Zenku was not a mentally-able man. And that, naturally, his family would be protective.

"You have no idea, detective." Now Zenku turned serious, deadly serious. "My sister's always watched out for me, cared for me. She fights my battles, detective, the physical and spiritual battles. She loves me but her ideas about love can be very wrong."

Detective Ken raised an eyebrow. "She can be over protective? Abusive?"

If Zenku was mentally-handicapped, even if he were an adult and were able-enough to be semi-independent, it was neither uncommon nor unheard-of that he could be abused by the other adults in his life. And more and more, as he noted the man's peculiarities, that ill-treatment explained so much from the posture to the behavior -

"Kuzen is unique. She - loves me - too much."

_Kuzen?_ he asked himself, again, noting that the man's name was supposed to be Zenku.

"There are moments when her love clouds her better-judgment."

And then Ken's feeling that Zenku was `underdeveloped' was lifted as another side of the man's persona emerged into view: an aspect that verbose and articulate, like an island of sanity amidst an ocean of lunacy. And he concluded that maybe he was not mentally-disabled, per say, maybe he was just off of his medication.

"Moments when she's - when she's mad."

"But she only does that because she loves you and wants to protect you."

"Yes, detective."

"Here," Detective Ken stopped and turned to face Zenku, "why don't we talk about what you know, say, at the PD?"

"Oh, no, no, no, if I'm late she'll worry. I have to go home, detective!"

"Hm, if I gave you my number and you gave me your number, how about that?"

It seemed to be a good ploy. As unbalanced as Zenku was, he was a pair of eyes and ears inside the building. And that was more than what Kenshin had without him.

"Yes."

The detective produced a pair of business cards. He gave one for the man to keep and another for him to write his information along its back. No sooner was the data exchanged than Zenku rushed through the crowds and melted into the throng right before Ken's eyes.

"What did I get myself into?" he muttered then looked at the back of the card the man filled out. "Zenku Mishima," it was odd that he listed his name in that order, it was odder, still, that he wrote it in Romaji. "512 Macarthur Avenue, Apartment H. Tokyo. Japan." No phone number was given. "Apartment H?"

Back inside the vehicle the remnants of the incense were thick and infused with fragments of musky, pelt-like odors. It was not unpleasant but it was different. Out of time and place. Smelling it again he saw his brother standing there haggard yet determined. And he wondered if Kev had been right all along about the nature of that killer Omega Squad had been tracking for the better part of a year.

"Security, heh?" he scoffed. He fumbled with the business card as he sat behind the steering wheel. After the wall of silence Detective Hideki faced _and_ the guard he `met' it did not make sense that Zenku Mishima could be part of the building's security.

He speed-dialed into his cell phone - three rings later his brother answered.

"Kev, how are you feeling? Better? Calmer?" he asked; across the street he looked at the building as the building looked at him.

"Tired," Kev answered. He sat up; the sounds of the chair grinding and creaking were broadcasted from one wireless to another. He leaned onto a desk in his apartment in his living room - that served as a kind of mini-office - and sighed and confessed: "I went to bed and I tried getting an hour's worth of sleep but I can't." He moved the cell pone from the right to the left side of his face; his hands passed over two, framed pictures of Kano and himself. "Listen, Ken, I'm sorry about how I acted back at the office - "

"Don't be, little bro," Kenshin smiled and shook his head - although the gesture could not be seen by his brother's eyes. "Get this - wait - you've got a map?"

"I've got a copy of _that_ map." Kev opened a drawer and produced a map. He unfolded it upon the desktop. It was a copy - a tiny, color copy - of the map Kenshin tacked onto the wall of Omega Squad's main office.

"At the upper-end of the line of black dots ought to be the corner of thirty-fifth and fifth." Within the car - isolated though upon a deserted-isle - the Japanese detective was as oblivious to the passing of the crowds as he was to the looming of the Kikyo Building. "Can you find it?"

"I see it." The American detective tapped the location upon the grid-work with a finger. "I can't read the lettering, though, it's all broken-up - it's, _something_, building."

"The Kikyo Building." Facing left - through the passenger's side of the vehicle - he inspected the traffic while he spoke into the cell phone. "Get this, a couple of days ago a woman fell off the Kikyo Building and died in the street. Detective Hideki was supposed to investigate but he couldn't get inside the building."

"He doesn't need a warrant to interview witnesses," Kev mused. He sat back; behind his naked, clean-shaved head hung the picture of a dragon Kano drew years ago.

"It's weird, I know, but listen," Ken's voice was excited -

And very much out of character that Kev noticed: "Hey, are you all right, big bro?"

"Yes, I feel better than ever! Listen: after you told me what you told me I searched the phonebook and found a firm named Onigumo that's located inside the Kikyo Building."

"No shit - and you're there aren't you?"

"Half-a-block away. I came by a few minutes ago. I can't get through the front door; the guard won't let me. I was about to quit when a man left the building. I approached him and we talked. The guy was one, weird dude, he wanted to call the cops about our murder and forgot if he did or did not."

"Our murder? Wait, wait," he stood - invigorated - and rubbed the back of his head. "He wanted to call the cops about the death _there_?"

"No, about the murder in the park. About the serial killer."

It became clear why his brother was anxious. And, neither dumbstruck nor bewildered by the `coincidence' for Inuyasha _predicted_ the connection, he asked: "What's the man's job, anyway? He let you enter?"

"No. He said he worked security - hah - but he did not know about the falling-victim until _I_ told him." He heard Kevin's snort through the cell phone and continued: "He said he had information - about the investigation - but he was too scared to tell me there. Or to tell me at home. Said his _sister_ would be mad at him for talking to the police about the murder of the teenage girls."

"His sister? What's the man's name and address?"

"Zenku Mishima," Ken found that he did not have to reference the business card though he looked at it while he flipped it through his fingers. "He lives at 512 Macarthur Avenue, apartment `H'."

"Apartment `H'?" Kev, finished jotting the address, let the pen fall upon the note and roll about the paper. "It must be a new fad renaming Japanese apartments." Ken laughed. "And what about his sister? Her name and address?"

"Kuzen Mishima - I suppose it would be Mishima - he did not say it but I gather she lives with him."

"Zenku and Kuzen, huh?" Standing again, he leaned by the wall by the picture of the dragon - he stared not at the drawing but at the jotted-note, at the copied-map. "So - what's your thought about it?"

"From what he said - and, mostly, from _how_ he acted - I got the impression his sister's a bit on the violent side. But I got the impression he's not all that balanced either."

Unable to resist it Kev ran to the desktop: "No shit, Kenshin! The five-hundred block of Macarthur Avenue is right at the lower-end of the line."

"No shit." Ken suddenly straightened up and became aware - _very aware_ - of the environment. "No shit."

There was a moment of silence and then -

"What if you had been right about the killer being a woman?"

"I don't know; after what my source told me, I don't know. But you said the man seemed to be, crazy, too, right? Maybe you should call the boss. Maybe there's more about this Zenku and Kuzen Mishima that we need to know."

"I'll call the boss."

"And you stay put, too, don't sneak into that building without me knowing."

Kevin hung up. Into the closet, out of the rack, he sifted through the contents of his jacket: that pocket with that weird, bizarre cell phone. It must have been planted by Inuyasha - and if true there ought to be a way of contacting the demon with it.

* * *

_And you're going to watch just like I watched my Kikyo die._

Inuyasha shut his eyes and shivered - he braced himself through his red, his blood-red, jacket. Its hood covered his cap that corralled his ears. The scar across his flesh left by Kohaku had been mended and vanished but the rent through his coat had not been repaired.

He could not get Naraku's `promise' out of his mind. The spider-demon was a very patient - abnormally patient - he planned events that unfolded through the course of centuries. There was no end to his plotting. His scheming was intertwined ten-thousand times over. And if it were possible to thwart this, his latest, evil plan, what was to stop the monster from executing backups. And how many backups existed?

More and more he doubted and questioned himself and his actions. He fought Kakotsu and Inukotsu - but it would not be the first and it would not be the last encounter between them. He invaded Naraku's lair - but inadvertently revealed too much about Kagome. He contacted the police - but was that a mistake, too, as Koga predicted it would be? And what could the police do to help him, anyway, especially that American detective?

Kano _trusted_ Kevin Markus and that might be enough. Given that his appearance curtailed his movement within that modern world he needed friends. If he were able to rely on that man - and that was a big if - then it might be that there would be even more eyes watching Kagome.

From the roof of that small, office building he watched the students file out of the high school. Minute by minute, face by face, he searched the mob of people for her. He knew by her scent she was there and getting closer. Coming nearer into the park.

And there - _there_ - there she was. He sauntered into the corner to be nearer, closer, while his eyes and his ears focused the power of his senses upon her. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her figure and the sound of her voice. She was surrounded by friends alive and happy. Something like a smile crept onto his lips - a half-smile, to be certain. Were he totally, truly happy still he would not be smiling. He could not be that happy if he could not hold that hand of hers. If he could not feel her hair through his fingers. Wrap his arms about her shoulders. That would be happy. The rest of the world was mere bitter substitute.

After so many years could it be? At the moment he wanted it he could not have it, ever?

The anguish of the torment and pain he caused her. What he used to call her, the way he used to treat her. And all of those `Kikyo-moments' of his immaturity and the humiliation it forced upon her. What five-hundred-year's worth of regret felt was beyond the power of language to express. And what he would have done to relive those long, forgotten days the way they should have been.

He followed her with his eyes; he moved only when she stepped out of his field-of-view. He was dead-set to trail her back home if he had to jump from roof-top to roof-top through the city of Tokyo. All the while he studied the people and the objects around her, triangulating the position of anything that could be dangerous. There were better ways of watching her but he dared not attempt them: were his scent mixed with Kagome's Naraku would be bound to discover it and her.

Then something happened. As fast as to be imperceptible even to a creature of his advanced and acute senses. Fifty-feet beneath a man rushed through the crowd and bumped into Kagome. The collision sent them falling back - and scattered the teenager's books upon the pavement.

Inuyasha watched as the familiar yet strange-looking man - who reeked of Naraku's miasma - arose onto his feet.

"I'm sorry, I - I'm sorry," Zenku stuttered. He and Kagome were surrounded by a sea of black clad boys and green-white uniformed girls. But at the moment, at that instant, the crowd was thin and there was no body standing between them. "Let me help you."

He reached a geometry text and grabbed a notebook.

"Oh, heh, that's alright, mister, it happens. Heh." Kagome excused herself as she stood. She brushed the sides of her uniform and the length of her skirt then reached and grabbed another schoolbook that lay upon the curb. "You don't have to do that, you're in a hurry, aren't you?"

Zenku smiled as he took the item before she took it. Reality was a blur: he could not tell if they were alone of if they were surrounded. She neared - her hands, fingers neared - he stared and sighed. She was so nice and so kind, he asked himself how understanding she might be: _If I asked her, say, for a date to make up for the awkwardness of this meeting, if she_ -

"Mister?" Kagome clutched her book - _her fingers touched his skin._

The stranger's heart skipped a beat as contact was made flesh to flesh

"Are you all right, mister?" she asked with a hint of worry infused into her tone. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be slow and awkward like a child and she wondered if he might not be mentally underdeveloped.

"Your hands are nice," he gasped. He panted and tried through desperate, jerky motions to hide it. "I mean - er - they feel nice." He blushed. He sweated. He felt the blood rush out of his head into his body.

"Oh." Kagome stood frozen. _What did he say? My hand feels nice?_

"I'm sorry, I mean, er, I mean," he stammered, smiling while tapping the back of his skull. "Heh - a man would kill to be touched by hands like that."

Kagome could have blinked if she were not dumbstruck.

The touch of their skin - as brief as the contact was - was electric. It urged him into breaking that `barrier' of shyness that always kept him away from the opposite-sex. And saying what he said, it was as if that last, great hurdle of his psyche had been breached.

Zenku could have died just being that bold with a girl - still - he could not be caught saying such things if his sister was around -

_His sister!_

"If you can see Kuzen, she can see you," he said inside his mind as the world seemed to be going blank. He felt light-headed while a great, nervous weight formed between his legs and threatened, moment after moment, to reveal itself.

She wanted to run. Clearly, something was very wrong with the man. But she stayed-put because she sensed _it_. An aura clung onto the stranger - an aura that was not human

For Kagome Higurashi, this was not supposed to be a possibility. Only the Feudal Era of Japan was beset by demons and the like. The modern world was free _-_ free of Naraku and, even, Inuyasha. And now, suddenly, to be unexpectedly confronted by a man with a demonic aura _that was lethally familiar_ she was stunned frozen -

_And what a perverted thing to say_, she thought.

Again he apologized: "I'm sorry, I get nervous, you know, around girls. Pretty girls."

He mulled over a series of mantras, yelling, screaming them out in his head. His body reacted along with the self, silent shouts. His knees shook. His back twisted. His hands trembled. And his eyes darted onto her face, onto the ground spasmodically.

Kagome put a hand over her lips - not so much to stifle a giggle but to mask a smirk. _Nervous around girls? He was, what, thirty? Oh, god, what if he's related to Miroku? Somewhere along the line they kept their horniness but lost their playboy-edge._

But the meaning of the scent of the aura was not lost on Inuyasha - and when he was certain no one was watching he jumped from the roof to the sidewalk.

"Haven't I seen you in the newspaper?" Zenku asked; it seemed there was something familiar about the girl's face besides its similarity to his sister's.

Inuyasha crawled by the back of the car out of Kagome's line-of-sight. He saw Hojo exiting the high school. He thought about using the cell phone but opted instead to rush through the street and contact the teenager face to face.

Hojo, for his own part, caught a glimpse of Inuyasha - he was the only one out in the pavement who was aware of anything like an Inuyasha - at least anything like a half-demon within the modern-world. He allowed himself to be grabbed the elbow and taken aside.

"Get Kagome away from that man," the fanged-demon said sternly.

Just the sound of the voice spurned Hojo into action - he knew when his godfather was that upset it was time for action.

As soon as Inuyasha melted into the row of cars out of sight and out of mind, the teenager shouted from across the street: "Kagome!"

Hojo waved at Kagome who only then looked at him; she took the hand away from her lips and waved at him to come over.

"Yes, Kagome Higurashi!" The shaking of Zenku's hands was replaced by the wagging of a finger as he recalled the photograph and the article "You won first place at your school's culture fest."

"Yes. Yes, I did, mister," she said, stepping back - Hojo was there and stood by her side. "Thank you for noticing, I guess."

"You have been so kind, so nice - so - _gentle_."

Something about the way he uttered those syllables - something about the way his eyes shut as he uttered those syllables - combined with the man's awkwardness in general inspired a sense of fear and foreboding in Hojo - and he teenager gulped.

"Let me walk you home, Kagome, you've been very ill lately," he himself stammered as he held onto her waist and drew her back - she did not resist the tugging.

"Yes, Hojo, I think you should be walking me home," Kagome said with a dense, monotone voice. For once he was right; that man was just way too strange and knew too much about her to be safe to be alone.

The highschoolers walked off and when they were far enough away from the man - who just seemed to be standing there looking at them, at her - Kagome whispered into Hojo's ear: "Promise me you won't grow up to be a pervert like that guy."

"Promise you, Higurashi?" He blushed. "You are all right, yes?"

She nodded - and did not look back again.

Inuyasha remained behind the row of the cars, keeping his gaze trained upon the meek, bald-headed stranger. He smelt the scent of carnal-excitement about the figure. And he smelt the hand of Naraku, too, it was extremely strong.

Zenku - the stranger - stood and seemed to be talking to himself.

The demon adjusted his cap and freed an ear: he heard the man talking about `Kuzen.'

Kuzen this, Kuzen that - it did not make sense to Inuyasha that anybody would be talking that way.

Through the streets, for almost a mile, Inuyasha followed Zenku across Tokyo. The course took him along the sights in which Kano told him many of the look-alike victims had been found. It froze the demon's blood thinking Kagome could have been that close to death.

And then he realized why the man's face was familiar: he saw him when he was inside Naraku's lair.

He was the man who entered into the office with the `H' upon the door.

Now - again - the figure entered through a doorway: Inuyasha watched Zenku reach an apartment building and disappear into its lobby.

He waited - and when the coast was clear he approached. He snooped about the doorway as children - young boys mostly - walked by with their older sisters in tow. He could have sworn one of them uttered `samurai' as they filed past.

Entering into the lobby - which was not empty - he eyed the bulletin board. He scanned the notices posted by the residents as if to subdue the suspicions of uneasy-onlookers. He even pulled down his hood to show that he was not a menace - of course, he was careful he did not reveal too much.

He approached the mailboxes and stood before them with his arms folded.

"Kuzen, Kuzen, Kuzen," he repeated to himself but there was no `Kuzen'. There was, however, a very curiously written `Zenku' labeled beneath the box of apartment `H'.

* * *

Kevin stood by the painting of Kano's - Shippo's - dragon. The immense portrait of gold and onyx was a gift from the man - the demon - he loved. Kano was always drawing things for him but that portrait was his most vivid and life-like creation. Every time he looked at it reminded him of his friend sitting before the canvas holding the brushes with the strangest, most quizzical look upon his face. And every time he felt the dragon's contour it was like he touched his friend -

_What it might be like,_ he mused, _to live through the centuries -_

It was then, while lost in thought, that the phone rang. He turned as if shocked out of a trance. He saw that it was not his telephone it was _the_ cell phone.

"Hello?" he asked, wondering who or what would be calling through that device.

"You there?" The voice from the other end of the line sounded more like and animal than a man. "Where are you?"

"I'm home, Inuyasha."

"Damn it! A creep made contact with her and he stank of Naraku."

"Where are you?" He sat at the desk, the map was still open upon it.

"I'm at - er - wait." He stepped out of the lobby into the street and read the building's address. "512 Macarthur Avenue."

"No shit!" Detective Kev took note and sat up. "Did you follow the creep into apartment `H'?"

"Whoa - how did you know about apartment `H'?" Inuyasha's ears - if they were not so before - now perked-up.

"My brother was casing what we think is Naraku's lair - a place called the `Kikyo Building'. It's at the corner of thirty-fifth and fifth. He stopped a guy who was leaving it, a man - um - head-shaved and nervous. Said his name was Zenku - er - Mishima."

"Zenku, Kuzen, that's the creep. That's got to be the creep. Get your ass over here," he barked into the cell phone.

"Wait - wait - now as much as I'd love to go gung-ho, remember, these crimes took place in the human world. Human rules need to be followed." Inuyasha growled - Kevin looked into the cell phone. "We need evidence, proof, that sort of thing. And don't you want to know just what this Zenku was doing working for Naraku? My brother wants to sneak inside and look around that Kikyo Building. If it _is_ Naraku's lair - and if you _were_ inside it once - you can get inside it again and help my brother."

"Yeah, maybe." He growled again - softly - and realized it might not be a bad idea to know a little more about the situation before jumping head-first into it. "Hm, you want me to break into Naraku's lair and to help your brother snoop and that's what it means to be working by human rules?"

"If this Zenku guy is the killer - and if he is taken down - what stops Naraku from recruiting another killer to do that dirty-work? You said yourself he's patient and plans for the long-term. But if we knew more about what's happening inside that place, we could be able to anticipate a countermove and plan ahead."

Inuyasha sighed - the American's idea was unorthodox as far as the Japanese legal-system was concerned but it was logical from his point-of-view. "Alright. I understand."

"I'll go to apartment `H'," Kev said, holding the cell phone onto his ear with his shoulder as he donned the coat. "In fact, I'm going there now."

"I'll get Shippo to come, too - and when he arrives I'm off to find your brother."

"Thank you. You know what he looks like?"

"Yeah, I saw him on TV."

"He's inside a car about a block away from Naraku's."

"I'll find him - just you get here."

"I'll get there and when I'll do I'll talk to that Zenku and his sister. Trust me, OK, I'll get to the bottom of it. One way or another."


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

It was five that afternoon when Kev rounded the corner and parked the vehicle at the very first spot available by the metered-curb. It was late but not yet sunset - evening would be impending soon as it did earlier and earlier that autumn - and the climate verged upon another, unseasonable storm. Already droplets of water, like velvet dew, splattered against the windshield and echoed within the vehicle. Leaving the car, his jacket ruffled by the gusts of a breeze, he stopped and looked up. To the west, across the distance through the skyline - and that vivid red tower-top - the skies, clear and cloudless, were a bright and yellow hue and the sun, within it, was immense and distorted. To the east, the vista was framed by thick, black clouds as night crept over the Pacific.

He examined the business card, upon which he wrote the kanji, ambling about the sidewalk from building to building. Along the way, the lamps flickered as the sunlight died and the shadows stretched into the infinite. The area was so peaceful, so quiet, it seemed like a deserted island in the middle of Tokyo. He rushed - the environment was just too calm to be bearable - he bolted into the lobby of the building marked 512.

He half-expected to find Inuyasha and was caught off-guard by the fact he was alone.

Again that isolation weighted upon him: it did not make sense that in a city of millions, a city tiny and crowded by convenience, that there could be such a forgotten corner.

_Where was everyone?_ he asked through his breath. He remembered Inuyasha saying he would be leaving the moment Kano arrived. "Shippo?" he asked aloud.

But his call was unanswered and to relive his stress he examined the contents of the foyer.

Along the far wall were notices and advertisements. There, more than anything, what caught his attention was a `missing' poster of a sixteen-year-old girl. She was not among the victims - the known victims - of the killer but she matched the profile He took the poster and folded the sheet into his pocket.

Along the near wall were mailboxes. And there were names upon the mailboxes. His eyes darted back and forth from the business card to the nameplates. But he did not need to know Japanese to read the label that stood out above the rest.

"Zenku," he read - the name written in English.

Kevin tapped the lid of the mailbox above the green patina of its copper `H'. It felt to be hollow. There was a buzzer beneath the `H' and the name-plate and his finger extended outward - tentatively though instinctually - to press it -

At the moment he was about to ring he was startled by a knock upon the glass of the innermost doorway.

"Shippo." The demon opened the entrance - the human snuck into the building proper. "How did you get inside?"

"I followed a tenant." He tapped Kev's hand letting a smile come and pass his lips. "How have you been, Kevin-san?

"Better, Shippo." He rubbed his finger against Kano's hand. The youthful-looking demon smiled - and he wondered what it would have been like to see those fangs pointing through those lips. How beautiful that sight could have been. And he could not resist kissing his friend's lips. Just for a moment, an instant. "Have you been upstairs into the apartment?"

The medic shook `no' and followed the detective onto the stairs.

Kano took Kevin's hand and squeezed to get the man's attention.

"Wait, there's something I have to do before we go upstairs."

Kev turned about ready to ask `what' when he caught Kano raising a leaf onto his hair. The human blinked more than a little puzzled by the demon's act and asked: "What's that about?"

And just as he spoke those words his eyes glazed and he stepped aback - Kano _vanished._ "Shippo?"

"I'm still here," he said.

Kev heard and felt Kano's hand again squeeze his own.

He continued: "It's an old, demonic trick I learned when I was young. It's not perfect and won't last but I figure it's an advantage."

"Alright," Kevin nodded. "Alright. It's said demons possessed super-human powers." Standing upright, he reached out and felt about the veil of warmth that enveloped his friend. "But - but how?"

"There's a lot I have to tell you, Kevin-san, but now is neither the time nor the place."

Looking nervous yet remembering why he was there - what he was there to do - he gulped and nodded.

"Apartment `H' is three flights above," the medic whispered behind, right behind, the detective. "It's at the front of the building where the hallway is unlit."

As they walked - slow and deliberate such that it would not seem by the sound of it that two people climbed the stairs - the ethereal misty trickle of rain thickened. The water fell drop-by-drop - also slow and deliberate - and crashed against the skylight fifteen flights above. And with its intensity the climate within the building cooled and darkened as if a shadow was thrust upon it.

At the third level, Kevin faced into the hallway. At the end of the foreboding, unlit corridor, he saw two doors. The left with its lights on and visible through the cracks of its frame. The right with its lights off - could it be that the onyx of space itself lay behind the façade?

For what must have been endless-moments, he stood, frozen and transfixed, while he stared through the void. All around, all over, was the calming, pleasing smell of the fresh, clean air. It was deceptive for his gut was tight and his body was tense. It felt as if he were standing upon the verge of disaster. Why did he think getting anywhere near those doors lead only to doom?

"The apartment is at the right," Kano whispered into his ear - and the feel of that warm, living breath brought Kevin back into the real world. "The darker-side of the hallway."

"That's what I feared it would be."

* * *

The knock against the glass alerted Detective Kenshin. The shock of it brought the man out of the trance induced by watching too closely, too monotonously into the Kikyo Building. It was then and only then that he realized it was raining - heavily. The knock returned - even louder and more annoyed now than before - and he looked toward the right. His eyes met the image of the red, crumpled jacket the sight of which was mutated into an unfocused and indistinct blur by of the splash of the rainwater upon the window.

Ken lowered the window. He angled his head up while the seatbelt restrained his torso down. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"It's how I can help you," replied the figure, whose face was cloaked by the jacket's hood. "Detective Kevin told you about me."

"You're the source? You're the guy my brother said would be -" Kenshin did not give himself the time to finish the thought. He undid the seatbelt and got out of the car. "He didn't tell me your name - or - much of anything about you." But the figure remained still and silent. The only hint that the wearer of the jacket was alive was the sight of his breath evolving through the cold, bitter air. "You've got a face under that don't you?"

"You want to go into the building or not?" Kenshin nodded - the figure stepped back and stated to walk away from the building.

"Hey, hey," the man protested as he followed. "You know what you're doing?"

"Shhh!" the figure warned: "When we're inside the building we will have to be very quiet. Eyes and ears will be hearing and watching us at all times"

"Understood," the officer said, turning up his collar.

The two walked into an alley. The lights of the nearby storefronts broke through the darkness. As too the sounds of their busy customers echoed about the shadows.

Inuyasha knelt by a manhole and reached into his jacket.

"What did your brother tell you about demons?" he asked.

"Demons?" Ken knelt by the manhole too. "Damn it, I should've taken my flashlight."

"It won't be needed." He removed his sword from his jacket. Ken leaned aback. "Don't get queasy," he said through a voice that was neither human nor animal but a new and different mixture. "Your brother wasn't _that_ afraid." He eased the blunt end of the scabbard into the gap between the edge of the manhole and the rim of the tunnel it covered. With almost super-human strength he lifted the lid and slid it out of the way.

"Sorry, it's just that, it's just that you don't see a lot of folks with swords," Kenshin explained - and recalled the conversation he had had with Detective Hideki.

"You don't see a lot of folks _like me_ either," Inuyasha added. "There's a ladder built into the tunnel's length. First you go then I follow."

"Alright, alright." Ken located the top of the ladder and eased himself into the manhole. "It doesn't seem to be deep," he commented. And it was not deep: it led twenty feet into the ground and it ended at a very solid - yet very dark - floor. He stepped away from the ladder and the cone of the light - eerie and dark-blue - that oozed through the manhole.

Inuyasha stepped onto the rim of the manhole and dropped - he arose into the wash of that light, dim and weak, through which Detective Kenshin eked the features of that face, its profile.

"Follow me, I've been here before," said Inuyasha. He took the detective by the elbow through a makeshift `tour' of the labyrinth. From the manhole to the entryway of a familiar, parallel tunnel. And through that into a wider, longer passage into which the city subway roared.

At that moment they stopped dead in their tracks as the trains passed.

"Don't be afraid - just follow me exactly."

* * *

Kevin, without wasting another thought, walked the length of the hallway. He reached the door and paused to listen within. But the banter of the rain hitting the skylight deafened the sounds of the voices echoing through apartment `H'. About to knock, he was alerted by a sound coming from the side - from the adjacent apartment - he turned and faced the door of apartment `G' -

_Was somebody behind it, listening, too?_

No - it could not have been - Kano would have warned him if they were being watched.

He shook it off and dismissed it altogether - then he ruffled about his coat, unzipping and removing from its pocket to his hand a notepad and a pen. Then he knocked. And when there was no reply he knocked again.

Kev looked about casually, bouncing his head about trying to look cool and in-control.

A door - rather - the sound of a door opening was followed by the sound of a person walking toward the entrance of apartment `H'. A moment later the locks were undone. A moment after the doorway itself was opened just a tiny, little crack.

"Um," Kev unfurled the right side of his jacket revealing his badge. "I'm detective Kevin Markus of Omega Squad." It was so dark inside the apartment and so dark outside the hallway that Kev could not tell if anyone or anything was looking at him through the crack. "If you're Zenku - Mishima - I believe you've already -"

"Yes!" a voice shouted and cut off the detective's statement. It begged the officer to enter: "Come in, come in," it added - it must have been moving its hand imploring him through gesture to enter but it was too dark to see.

Kevin reached for the door, cautiously, and pushed it open - open all of the way. Exposing more and more of the apartment's interior, with his eyes he explored what could be seen through the shadows and darkness. "You are Zenku, right?" he asked still looking, still studying the situation.

Within, the details of apartment `H' revealed themselves layer by layer. First were the windows, bare and open, that displayed the faraway, distant vision of Tokyo. Its skyline, its bright, twinkling lights, were like the stars of a manmade universe and seemed to be more like a painting than a reality. Then, surrounding the windows, was the apparent pitch black of the walls, of the floor and ceiling. Then, inside that void, were the suggestions of furniture here and there. Last was the television set - that was turned on that moment, that instant - whose monitor washed the chamber with its warm yet dim twilight.

And with that the detective caught his first, good glimpse of the resident: for it was a man who turned on the TV and there he was leaning by the set, stark naked and dripping wet.

"Yes, it's Zenku," he said at length, stuttering the words like he was speaking to a crowd and not to an individual.

Kevin blinked and sighed - he looked back at the door through which he entered. It was ajar and suddenly, unexpectedly - as if caught by a breeze it alone felt - it swayed. He touched its knob - undid its locks - and shut the door.

"Aren't you cold?" Kev asked.

He noticed that at the man's right there were two doors. The first, near to the windows, was ajar but unlit. The second, far from the windows, was shut but lit. Yet as the detective - and as the man - looked upon it, it appeared to be swaying. It seemed to be opening, letting steam and light pour through it. For a moment, no more and no less than a moment, it was as if someone or something moved through the vapor within.

Of course, it was the bathroom and he must have caught Zenku in the middle of a shower.

"Not at all, you, ah, heh heh," the man was nervous and jittery but every so often his speech would be clear and concise. "Where are my manners?"

"Yes?" the detective half-asked, half-commented as he flipped open the notepad.

"I don't get visitors," he explained. "Sit, sit!" he pointed at the couch opposite the TV by which he stood. All the while his eyes alternated between the detective and the bathroom.

"What about your sister, um, Ken-zu?" he asked, scratching his head and chin as he approached the seat.

"Kuzen, you mean." The man smiled, amused by the foreigner's butchering of the name. "No, she doesn't get visitors, too."

"Where might she be now?" he asked, turning onto the last page of the book. "When you spoke to my brother about -"

"She's in the bathroom, showering," he said, again cutting off Kevin in mid-sentence.

* * *

Passing the subway tracks, Inuyasha and Detective Kenshin climbed atop its unfinished platform. The area of the would-be station was as malformed and abandoned as everything they saw through the maze of the tunnels. The only solid, well-built structure was the stairway that led upward. There the half-demon approached the officer and pointed at the ascent; the man took the creature's hint and looked into the passage.

The path was higher and steeper than he thought it would be - could be - and there was no light at the end of it.

"Do you smell that?" Inuyasha asked Ken, whose steps he sensed were slower now than they had been before.

"I don't smell anything," he answered - amid whisper - and stifled a cough. "But the air is hard to breathe."

Inuyasha nodded - although within the darkness the gesture could not be noticed - and continued: "We're inside Naraku's miasma. We've got to be quick, in time the air will kill any human - any normal, living thing."

"What is this Naraku? This, _demon_, business?" he gasped as he ascended. His pace was slow and labored as he arose one step at a time.

"You'll _know_, detective. You'll know soon enough."

At the head of the stairs they found the door to be locked. But Inuyasha forced the knob and the restraints snapped. And the knob at the other side of the door fell to the floor.

"Shit!" he cursed under his breath. He jammed his finger into the hole left by the knobs and with his claw against the mechanism of the lock he pried the doorway open. "You want to see that creep Zenku's office?" Kenshin nodded, his face like the rest of his body was exposed by the light of the hallway behind the door. "I'll take you there - we'll go in and out fast ." And he warned again with a wagging finger - a _clawed_ finger - "This is not a place for humans."

* * *

"You shower with your sister?" Kev questioned, his expression revealed him to b more than a little dumbstruck.

"Well - you - shower with your brother, don't you?" But Kev's face did not change. "I mean you must have?" Kev was about to speak but Zenku interrupted: "Wait, that man was your brother."

He nodded: "Yes, Detective K -"

"From another mother, is that how the saying goes?"

Again, there was that not-so-subtle suggestion now not only by his intrusions but also by his gestures toward the bathroom that led the detective to realize Zenku did not want things to be said openly

"Actually, the same mother," he smiled. "Anyway," he continued, leaning closer - and Zenku listened, also leaning closer. "When you spoke to my brother he felt he scared you. He thought that maybe, you know, your sister could be abusive to you."

"Oh, no, no, no! Not to me," Zenku whispered. "My sister loves me - too much, though, I admit - Ke-vin, is that how it goes?"

"Yes," again he smiled, now at the hackneyed Japanese syllabification. "Anyway, I just wanted to calm your nerves, you know, maybe to talk to your sister. You know. Straighten things out between you two."

Now Zenku smiled, almost teared up, and - still soaking wet - planted himself onto the chair before the American detective.

At that moment, at that instant, the door of the bathroom _creaked._ The two men turned to face it. Zenku's heart skipped a beat and Kevin heard it.

"There are things about your sister," he whispered, "that make you nervous."

Zenku shook back and forth; his skin, soaped and wet, made weird, slosh-like sounds against the leather of the chair. The pause seemed to be indefinite and was punctuated by the splatter of the rains hitting the windows.

"Violent things - maybe she gets angry - maybe she gets angry at you -"

"Not at me, Ke-vin, not at me." He struggled to keep his voice down as the words poured out of his lips into the air.

"But," Kev put the notebook and pen away, wanting nothing sharp and deadly about. "But. Maybe, you figure, if she were to be scared a little, tiny bit that she'll think twice about the things she does. And you figure, too, she'll stop." He tapped the man's - wet - knee, trying to be understanding. As it was a picture was forming about the situation: of a mentally-challenged man living with a physically and sexually abusive woman. His sister no less. And more and more that image was becoming pronounced. Clearly, he could not be - and would not know anything about - the murderer. Clearly, he saw Kenshin's badge and wanted to be heard - to be saved - but because of his, problem, he did not know how to express himself.

"That would be -" a tear that formed along his eye welled and streaked across his cheek falling from his face to the floor.

And then another creak came from the door of the bathroom and he stood - erect and shaken.

* * *

"It was here that I saw Zenku," explained Inuyasha as he snuck about the hallway.

At the end of the hallway Detective Kenshin peaked into the corner half-demon Inuyasha indicated. Beyond the ninety-degree, blind turn the passage continued deep into the building. The walls were adorned by doors - office doors - and there was a lobby with a guard sitting behind a desk.

Ken rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was the miasma - whatever _that_ was - that infected the air that played with his eyes and his brain. And maybe it was the distance, too, that fragmented the image. But there was something _singularly wrong_ with the man seated behind the desk. In almost all respects he seemed to be the twin of the guard he encountered earlier - back when he tried to get into the building through its front-door - but now that there was more light and now that it was clearer -

"Stay put," Inuyasha growled and recklessly sauntered down the hallway.

The sound of his running was loud and intense - it alerted, Kenshin feared, everyone inside that floor.

"Wait, Inuyasha! What are you, what are you doing?" He stumbled, lurched forward. The bad air affected his thoughts and his movements. He reached into his jacket for his weapon but it was too late: through the seemingly endless moment in which he struggled with his body Inuyasha reached the guard and knocked the figure against the elevator. He had sprinted into the scene like a bolt out of the blue and the guard was unable to respond with more than a whimper. "I thought we're supposed to be quiet inside Naraku's lair."

"We're supposed to be fast, too," he replied and dragged the man into a room labeled with an `H'. "We'll be alone for a while," he assured the human.

"How can you tell?" Ken asked. "There are so many, so many offices."

He pointed at his nose; his features were half-visible by the light of the hallway and half-obscured by the excess of the hood.

"You can sniff them out, huh?" The detective stood and was about to speak when he noticed a queer peculiarity about the door. "A peephole?"

Inuyasha explored about the area of the door the man was indicating to - indeed, beneath the `H' there was a peephole but it was installed _backward._ He shook his head and shut the door, plunging the chamber into a weird, eerie glow. For the monitors upon their banks were on and displayed their forbidden contents.

"It appears to be a security office." Ken mused and thought about something Zenku said. "Are you sure this is where Zenku went into?"

"I can smell him - he's - everywhere." Inuyasha walked by a wall upon which were taped the images of females.

"Oh, shit." Kenshin held back - and held Inuyasha back - from touching what he judged could be evidence. "Some of these are girls I don't know - but - some of these are victims I know too-well." After all of the months spent studying the crime scene photographs the images would be burned into his mind forever. "He took them from newspapers and missing posters. Like, trophies -"

"Victims. Not all of them will be victims," Inuyasha sighed, "I came to you in the knick of time, I know it," through the fabric of his jacket he grasped his Tetsaiga. Gesturing with a nod he seemed to be leading the detective toward the largest of the images at the center of the wall. It was a young, teenage girl dressed in her high school uniform, green and white. The face was clear and undeniable though the features were warped as if they had been wet. "That's her. She's the one he's after."

"Ah, my brother told me about that. You think Naraku's after her and the killer's just striking at random look-alikes -"

"Until he finds her - and he found her." The half-demon bowed his head and wrapped his arms about his back - revealing those claws. "I watched him, encounter, Kagome after school. He touched her."

"Kagome?" An awkward moment passed more because of the miasma than because of any lack of thought or compassion on the part of the detective. "She's important to you?"

"You cannot imagine how important she is to me, detective." He held the man's arm - the human did not realize his balance was compromised by the bad-air. "And you can't stay any longer."

Ken nodded and wondered: "You can't protect her?"

"I try," he confessed. "But if I get too close to Kagome Naraku will see and know. He will sense me upon her just like I sense his presence upon the things he touches. As long as Kagome can be anonymous she will be safe."

Ken raised an eyebrow. He was not being told much about the situation. And it irked him to be kept in the dark - but - he recalled what he himself told his brother, _solve one problem at a time._ It was at that time that the monitors trigged his interest.

"Those, views, those images aren't part of the building." He walked toward the banks of the monitors with the half-demon holding onto his arm helping him keep his balance. "Doesn't that look like a school locker room And doesn't that look like a school gym?"

"It must be a high school with a security system," Inuyasha reasoned. "And these monitors must be tapped into its signal."

"A locker room - a bath room - someone, sick and perverted, someone went out of their way to keep this Zenku entertained." Kenshin found himself weighing his words more heavily than normal. "As if to keep his, passion, stoked."

And then, as they watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust, a group of ten girls - a sports team by the look of the uniforms - entered into a locker room displayed upon a monitor. They averted their eyes as the teenagers took off their clothes and prepared for their shower.

"Zenku has a taste for girls and this," he paused to breathe - it was more and more difficult to breathe within that miasma - "Naraku, fed that. Gave him a job where got to see all of the girls he wanted. And let him kill those who struck his fancy. Those who met the mold and form of Kagome."

"Kagome must be warned," Inuyasha thought aloud. "I know a boy who can be trusted -

"There's time, I think," Ken added his own, particular mussing. "My brother's with Zenku and his sister. If they try anything -"

A cell phone rang - but it was not Inuyasha's and he did not move.

Detective Ken rushed his hand into his pocket to reach and silence the device.

"Hello," he whispered into the cell phone. "It's Detective Kenshin."

"Ken," it was Captain Takeshi. "I got the info you wanted about Zenku Mishima. There's not much, though, clean record. No convictions, no arrests. Bad grades, though, he's a high school drop out. Now, _about his sister_ -"

"What do you mean?" Ken asked, suddenly struck by the force of the release of adrenaline. "Damn it, what the hell did Kevin get into?"

* * *

"I love American things, you know," said Zenku proudly. "I watch all sorts of American movies - in English - I practiced the language a lot when I was younger."

"Yes, I noticed your mailbox label was written in English," the detective played along wondering what else the man could be wanting to confess.

"My parents were always thinking about going to America." He crossed his arms and sighed. "Said they would be free there to be themselves."

"And where are they now?" he inquired.

Zenku shook his shoulders and gestured `I don't know.' After a pause he added, verbally, "Maybe they escaped there - I don't know - one day they were, just, gone."

"Gone?" Kev rubbed his chin and leaned back. "You and your sister were abandoned."

"No, just, me." He, too, leaned back and shut his eyes.

"Your sister wasn't with you?" He was curious - what if that Kuzen was not his sister but a stranger, taking advantage of his condition pretending to be his sister.

"My twin, my older, twin sister, she was out of my life for many years before that abandonment. But we always kept in touch." He smiled and leaned forward: "You know, there's a special bond between twins. It extends even _beyond death._ When she came back into my life I was very happy." He slapped his knee and leaned backward. "But, yes, I like American things."

"Well, I understand, I like Japanese things."

"Yes?" Zenku stood and faced the door of the bathroom.

Kevin could not tell if the `yes' was a reply to him or to someone yet unseen.

"I get that from my mother," he added, looking up at Zenku.

"You know, a man like you ought to be very popular with the girls," he said off-the-cuff, pointing against his own, clean-shaven head.

"Ah, _the look_," Kev smiled and got up. "There's something about the look that appeals to me but I don't know about the girls."

"I don't know about the girls, either, I wasn't popular with the girls when I was younger. I'm better now that I'm older. But my sister gets jealous." He smiled - but it was not a smile that showed friendliness, it was a smile that hid fear and terror. And he added, through whisper, "If she knew what kind of girl I bumped into today she would be very jealous."

"You bumped into a girl?" Playing along, Kevin also whispered and leaned into Zenku's space such that the words traveled from the detective's lips to the man's ears directly.

"Yes! A teenager from high school. She was wearing that tight shirt and that skirt with its easy-access." Kev raised an eyebrow but Zenku did not notice and continued: "The way she lay there - `cause she fell back onto her ass - with those legs spread wide. God, what I would've done to feel up that skirt." He gasped, his breath hot and fast; he spoke in near-perfect English and the detective wondered if it was just to keep his sister from understanding what he was saying. But he sounded so aroused and so child-like it would be impossible not to know what was _meant_. "Oh, I know it's wrong, detective, but I wouldn't have hurt her. How could I have hurt her? Something that good and awesome to feel, I would not have hurt _it._"

Kevin paused; he did not know just how to respond. It did not - immediately - conform into the mold of his theory but, as he thought about it, it made sense. If Zenku was mentally held-back he would think of himself as no different from a teenager. He might, in fact, have the mental-capacity of a boy _even younger_. And therefore he would be prone to fits of sudden, overpowering hormonal-urges. Mind-bending immaturity.

"But, if you _had_ touched it, I would have arrested you, Zenku."

"Ke-vin, just for a feel of it - young and tender -"

Kevin _saw_ the effect the talk of girls was having with Zenku - through the light that oozed out of the bathroom the silhouette of his erection could not be missed.

"But your sister would have been jealous and you can't have that."

"No, Mr. Oni - I mean, Ke-vin - I can't have that. She protects me, you know, from myself and my urges."

"Your urges," the detective repeated.

"For pretty, young girls." He smiled, laughed.

The detective wondered if he should have taken a few more psychology classes -

"How does she protect you, Zenku?"

The words - _those words_ - echoed loudly within the walls of the bathroom.

"She can't be kept waiting."

Again, as if caught by a breeze, the door of the bathroom _creaked_ as it swayed back and forth.

"Do you mind waiting? We'll be finished with the shower -"

"Alright, alright."

Zenku entered the bathroom and vanished through its fog - he did not shut the door behind him.

Kevin was left standing in the dark, asking himself what was going on inside apartment `H'.

He sighed and said - weakly - for the benefit of another's ears: "I've got to talk to that sister."

He was about to approach the window - which was as soaked with rain as Zenku was soaked with shower - when the bedroom caught the corner of his eye. The bedroom siphoned off most of the light of the bathroom and that revealed tantalizing - almost erotic - glimpses of its interior.

He tried standing under the doorway outside the bedroom. But the bulk of his body only blocked the path of the light and plunged the chamber into darkness And, against his better judgment, he entered it and stood by its book-cluttered wall.

He saw the bed. _Curious,_ he noted, _that brother and sister shared a shower and a bed_. But was it their bed or Kuzen's bed? Was it their room or Kuzen's room? It was not fit for a boy; it was decorated by all of the touches that would have been found inside a girl's bedroom

Especially that Hello Kitty box - whose color was masked by shadow. It was the type used by little, school-aged girls to stuff their jewelry into. A man as disturbed as Zenku still though of himself as a male and would not have possessed a female item. It must have been his sister's!

He knelt before the edge of the mattress and, with the aid of the pen, aimed to flip its lid but paused frozen. Upon that lid, written with a black ink, was the name - in English - `zenkuzen.' The first `zen' had been crossed out. There was kanji beneath the `name' also written with that black ink that shimmered like silver inside that onyx environment - the Japanese read: `death to those who open it.'

His heart raced and his hands shook - why was he afraid of the thought of what could be inside that box? Yet, _he opened the box_. He opened it with such force that it tipped onto its side and spilt its contents from the mattress to the floor.

"My god, my god," he whispered and stood and staggered back -

There, upon the bed, were fragments of torn, shredded skirts. There, falling by his feet, were panties - eight, ten, twelve panties - _caked in blood._

Reaching into his jacket for his gun, he stumbled back until he met resistance from a hand poking into his back.

* * *

"We have to get to my brother fast. It's going down, Inuyasha, you've cracked this nut for us."

"_Get down!"_ The half-demon shouted and removed the sword from his belt.

"What the hell?" Detective Ken stumbled back and reached into his belt for his weapon. As if on-cue the door was kicked and shattered - its pieces fell onto the floor into a pile. At the boundary, between the lighted hallway and the darkened office, stood a formidable, imposing figure. And though it was silhouetted only, he thought there was something very much wrong with the figure. "The ears - are - different," he spoke as the miasma knocked the breath out of his lungs.

Inuyasha rushed toward the beast - but the stench of Naraku was potent and affected him too. As he raised his sword - slower than usual - the interloper took that opportunity to punch his jaw and fling his body against a rack of technical-parts. The half-demon struggled back onto his feet seeing the figure rushing into him. He let go of the sword and, with both hands free, clutched the wall and kicked the monster's chest with all of his might, knocking _it_ back against Zenku's makeshift-shrine.

"This, is the Detective Kenshin of Omega Squad, Tokyo PD. You are commanded to stay where you are," he shouted with his gun in his hand pointed at the intruder. As the figure was breaking out of the wall - out of the form-fitting hole his body punched into the wall - the man approached, dragging his feet for his ankles and knees were weakening and his balance was draining. Yet, despite the pain, he lurched and saw that the monster's ears were, in fact, different as were the fangs that pointed out of his lips. And the strength it showed throughout was not human.

The creature - known as Hitomi - stood and with a swipe of its hand knocked the detective against the monitors. The human, despite the attack - did not lose his grip of the weapon and did not squeeze its trigger. The demon - for now he understood, whatever it was, it was not human - again turned its attention toward Inuyasha. And Inuyasha was back armed with the Tetsaiga - but the fight with the monster eased his hood away from his head and revealed all of his features.

"But you're not human either?" Kenshin blinked seeing Inuyasha's ears. "What is all of this? Wait," he recalled the gravity of the situation just in time as the Hitomi beast produced a weapon. "Put that down, whatever you are, put that weapon down, now!"

But the demon smirked and flung that object - a circular disk with curved, metal spikes - at the detective. The weapon imbedded itself into the man's chest where his shield would have been. And yelling in pain Kenshin shot Hitomi, knocking him back a few, meager inches.

It was the distraction Inuyasha needed -

"Kaze no Kizu!" Against his better judgment he used one of his tricks against the demon indoors

At once a flash of lightning surged through the length of the Tetsaiga and focused its fury onto the figure who was both lost amidst its bright, blinding plasma and sent flying through the wall by its force. There was a smoke, there was a scream and a sound so fierce and so terrifying the memory of it did not settle completely into Kenshin's mind. The events were lost forever only fragments of actions, vague and indistinct, filled the gaps of the missing time. Then, when next he was - _fully_ - aware of what was happening, there was Inuyasha with the sword gripped by his hands, fully extended and larger than it seemed to be earlier. And there, where Hitomi stood was just a hole blown through the wall from the office to the streets - rainwater was trickling into the chamber as well as the cold, bitter air of the night.

"What happened?" Ken asked; he was not in pain but he was bleeding and his consciousness was waning.

"Shit!" Inuyasha said, looking at the wound. He pulled his hood over his head and placed his sword into his waist. "We've violated police procedure, haven't we?"

"I, I, I guess," he laughed. He struggled - but succeeded - at tucking his gun into his jacket. "Curiosity killed the cat, huh? I wanted to know the truth. You tell my brother I loved him. No matter what I loved him."

"Shut up and stop being so god damned melodramatic," he scowled. "Here," very gently, as gently as possible, he carried Kenshin with his arms and ran into the gaping hole. "Just you keep your eyes shut, OK? I don't want you panicking, alright, you're going to make it through this, alright?"

He nodded and shut his eyes as suddenly the air of the night cooled his body and it felt as if he were riding a roller coaster going down.

* * *

Kevin turned and sighed: "Shippo, you scared me," he gasped.

It was Kano, his clothes hot and moist, the leaf crumpling into dust within his hand.

"I need your help to arrest those two," Kev said and noticed his friend looked afraid. "Hey, what is it?"

"_You did what, Zenku?_" The detective and medic were stunned by the intrusion of the voice. The shrill, sharp female voice shouting through the bathroom.

"I - I - I only did it to help, Kuzen. You need help," the male voice replies, broken and stuttered.

The conversation was followed by the sounds of the shower curtain being ripped and bodies being tumbled about.

Kevin reached for his gun and drew Kano away from the door of the bedroom. He shut it yet left it ajar enough that the rest of the apparent could be seen through its crevice. He saw into the bathroom - as far as _its_ doorway allowed. Amid the steam and the bright, yellow light there were suggestions of a violent, physical, struggle.

"Stay down," Kevin whispered at Kano, who nodded and inched further back nearer and nearer the bed.

"_You betrayed me, Zenku, you betrayed me!_"

"I'm trying to save you - you have to be stopped!"

"Kevin-san." Kano's voice at that moment seemed to be a mixture of fear and calm, youth and wisdom.

Instantly the struggle ceased - the argument within the bathroom stopped - and the apartment was blanketed by the silence of death.

When next Kev looked through the door - "Get down! Stop! Stop!"

But before the detective aimed the weapon the figure - cloaked by the shadow - rushed through the bathroom. And by the darkness and by the speed with which it sprinted across the darkness he could not see its features fully. And he did not react fast enough - whoever it was reached the bedroom door - kicked it - and knocked him back. The officer fell against the bed and the box tumbled onto the floor.

"_I'll be revenged! I'll show you, Zenku. You can't destroy me but I can destroy you!"_

The figure did not follow through with its attack upon the detective - instead it fled out of the apartment.

Dazed, Kev stood with the aid of Kano.

"She was fast, damn it, we've got to follow her, Shippo. Where would she go? Where?" he wondered aloud as he approached the bathroom gun in hand. "That girl's house, you think? You know where it is, right?"

"_Kevin-san!"_ Kano shouted and, with a strength beyond a human's, dragged the man away from the bathroom - its door was open and its shower curtain could be seen tattered upon the floor. Out of the apartment into the hallway, he confessed: "I went inside the bathroom and I saw _something_ you need to know."


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Kevin clutched the wheel; it was raining and his focus onto the road was determined and unshakeable. "Is it up this street?" he asked without shifting his eyes away from the windshield. "It's not yet six and everything's night."

"It's there," Kano tapped the man's left arm with his free hand, with his other hand he pointed across the street. "That's the gate of the Higurashi Temple."

The detective parked the car and faced the medic. "Stay here Shippo and keep this," he gave the fox-demon the cell phone that Inuyasha planted into his pocket. "If he calls tell him what happened."

Kano took the device and asked: "What are you going to do?"

"Case the joint," he answered with a thick American accent. "I'll be all right. You just be all right too." He unzipped his coat and switched his badge from the inside of his shirt to the outside of his jacket. "If you see anything use - well - use whatever you got, OK?"

Kano squeezed Kevin's hand. Kevin kissed Kano's cheek and with a smile that belied fear and terror, he stepped out of the vehicle into the rainstorm.

It was night; the clouds above were pitch black like death while the city below was bright colored as if alive. Yet the area about the temple was dark and shadowy and calm. Too calm. Kev could not help but be nervous as he walked by the streetlamps anticipating disaster with each and every step. He approached the shrine's gate and clutched his gun when he noticed that though one of the doors was shut the other swayed.

Beyond those doors of ancient, Japanese design were steps formed by stones built into the earth. The rocky stairs ascended fifty-feet. With its trees and its shrubbery, there was a great, profound beauty and serenity that neither the action of that storm nor the possibility of that evil was powerful enough to ruin.

He arose one step at a time; past the edge of the head of the stairs glimpses of the temple emerged into view. First the very tops of the buildings. Then their sloped roofs. Then their facades, their windows and doors. Last was the light - rather - the lack of light. That part of the temple into which the gates led contained its public facilities but at night it was closed and it was kept as bleak as the streets.

Passing through the structures that housed the workings of the Shinto rituals, he felt danger lurked within the subtle facets of the setting. There, in the locked doors and boarded windows. There, in the crawlspace between the small, hut-like structures. There, in the web-work of the dead and dying vegetation. The fear was irrational but it was not unfounded. If a good demon whom he loved and trusted could - by powers beyond imagination - turn himself invisible, what, he asked, could an evil demon the likes of Naraku be capable of?

Birds fluttered and furry, red-eyed animals hissed - branches of trees ruffled and unwound brown and decayed vines that swung caught by the wake of a breeze he could hear but he could not feel. The very form and substance of the world suggested the existence of powers dark and malevolent. And he was shaken by that sudden and unexpected revelation. It was evil intertwined into nature.

It dwelt in the vastness of the sky, limits of the earth. Its home was in the rustle of branches, the crackle of underbrush. It existed everywhere, forever even into the smallest parts of it, in the atom, no, smaller.

_Into what realm of the universe did Naraku's influence not extend?_

As Kevin treaded onward toward the house - and its light - he heard the clatter of leaves crushing underfoot as if an intelligence was revealing itself through the shadows and darkness of the Higurashi temple. It was a cacophony so balanced and so delicate that the very breath of his body drowned the sensation of it. But it was there and he could not bear it any longer. The evil, piercing yet subtle, tainted his sanity while its miasma infected his lungs. And he felt as though he were caught up in the middle of an ageless struggle, transported back into a time when demons were powerful and humans were weak.

At the modern-looking house - that was the Higurashi residence - he looked up and shuddered. A window-mesh at the second floor had been torn and by the lamplight of the chamber he saw the silhouette of the struggle within.

"Damn it!" he shouted - and tried to aim the weapon but the sight was too chaotic and too distant to be safe to fire. "I'm too god damned late!"

Kevin bolted through the door with one, single kick. A scream followed the intrusion: it came from the end of the foyer at the living room. The officer saw the mother and the young, pre-teen boy; the two looked at his badge and his gun and stepped back.

"Stay where you are," he commanded. The female nodded and the male just stood frozen. A cat by the rear of the chamber, half-in and half-out of the darkness arched and hissed but not at Kevin.

"Damn it!" he ran up the stairs - he heard the thrash of the struggle.

Below, inside the living room with the rain and the TV, the sound of the fight could not be heard. But above, as he leapt up the stairs, it was as loud as a crack of thunder. Now - now - he ran like a cartoon figure; he thought he ought to be faster but it was not fast enough. No matter how much he tried he strained. His movements seemed to be unnaturally slow and sluggish - but - he reached the bedroom and kicked the door and pointed the gun within.

"This is Detective Kevin Markus, get away from her!"

"_I'm going to destroy him! Zenku will pay for betraying me!"_

Inside the room Kagome stood atop the bed and fought against the hands that chocked her neck. She punched and kicked the assailant - and by the chance of the moment she knocked a lamp and plunged the chamber into darkness of night.

"I said get away form her, now!" he shouted - _in English_ - and for a moment, no more and no less, the figure of the killer was startled. It was enough of a distraction that Kev got a clear shot and without shouting again he fired at the assailant.

A scream - and Kagome fell back onto the mattress and staggered away from her would-be murderer.

"Get down!" Kev shouted. The figure, still masked by the night, was not affected by the bullet. "Stay down!" The figure limped toward the detective who again fired - and fired - three, four shots each time pushing the assailant backward into the window. The last bullet actually pushed the stranger through it onto the wet and muddy ground beneath.

Detective Kev froze and gasped. His gun, spent and useless, was placed back into his jacket. It felt unduly hot. He looked at Kagome - she lived - he nodded at the teenager and approached the window, panting and out of breath.

Kagome gasped and crawled toward the door - where her mother and her brother waited - and asked: "Was that the boogey man?"

Kevin faced Kagome and answered: "As a matter of fact, it was."

He stuck his head out of the window and looked -

"_I went inside the bathroom and I saw something you need to know."_

"_I've won, I've won! Hah hah, I've won!"_

That voice - it was not male, not female any longer - it was a new and unheard of union, a bone-chilling mixture.

"_Kevin-san, there was no one inside."_

It was Zenku, naked and bleeding, and it was clear by the expression upon the face that there had been a change _- a victory_ - that extended from the voice to the body for whatever struggle he fought between himself and his demons it was over.

* * *

Recovery Room `18' was alive with banter when Detective Kev entered.

It was morning, the sun as bright and the air was cool - the windows, bare and open, let the world outside filter inside the chamber. Though built for six it seemed to be designed for one: its details were minimal - Spartan and utilitarian - all of which escaped notice. Except for its amber-yellow walls that glowed with a radiance not that of a sterile hospital room but that of a warm and cozy bedroom. And there, upon the bed, lay Detective Kenshin while, off by the side, stood Captain Takeshi and Detective Hideki.

His brother, now awake and alert, did not look as beaten-up as he had been told then by the medics. He chuckled to himself - more nervous than amused - thinking that his brother did not look any worse for wear. Yet. It pained Kevin to see Ken infirmed like that with needles pricked into his arm, bandages taped across his chest. And it scared him to know he had been close to death when that mysterious, red-coated `bystander' brought him into the hospital.

"What's the story, huh?" Kev asked. He had stalked into the chamber by the bed and only then had made his appearance known.

"Little brother," Ken smiled, angling his head back onto his pillow.

Kev bowed at Hideki and shook hands with the boss.

"It seems you're the hero of the story, little brother." Ken raised a newspaper, _the Nikei_ _Times_, that showed a picture of Kev and a mug shot of Zenku, dubbed the `Brother of Kuzen Killer.' Beneath the front-page headline it read: `American Cop Nabs Japanese Serial Killer.'

Kev laughed: "Reading the funny pages again, huh?"

Ken folded up the paper and hit at Kev's arm. "You're famous. Heh heh heh, maybe, now you won't have to be showing your badge all of the time too."

"Doubt it," he confessed, looking down then up; he smiled.

"You're the hero, kid, live with it," the old man patted Kev's shoulder.

And with that - and with another round of bows and handshakes - the detective brothers were left alone.

"How are you doing? I was told you lost a lot of blood," his voice was low and very much concerned.

"I am OK thanks to Inuyasha," he faced the window and added: "you know, the bystander who saved me after the thugs attacked me."

"Oh, yes, of course, Shi - Kano - informed me about that." And he leaned over his brother's ear and asked: "How much did you see, Ken?"

"Enough." Ken faced his brother. "Enough to keep my mouth shut. Hey, um, heh," he looked nervous, even sweaty, "what did Inuyasha tell you about it?"

"Nothing." Kev squeezed Ken's shoulder and patted his cheek with his palm. "We haven't talked since that evening. Hm, Kano and Kaede are back at apartment `H' sifting through the evidence - we think there might have been more victims, big brother, girls that we just haven't found yet." His brother raised an eyebrow and sat aback. "Well, it's over now all of it. I think - I don't know - but I think it's over." Ken smiled; Kev faced the window. "Don't scare me like that again, OK?"

There was a pause, long but not awkward.

"You know, I understand Zenku." He laughed and sat at the edge of the bed. "He was the younger of the twins. But Kuzen was stillborn and - someway, somehow - it must have twisted him knowing that. Knowing that he shared a womb with a corpse. He must have felt utterly and completely alone. And guilty. For being alive and enjoying it. It must have twisted him." Kenshin nodded and gripped Kevin's knee and laughed: "And, _this_, you understand?"

"Well - of course - not by that experience." He sighed. "Anyway, Zenku doesn't exist anymore. Doubt if he ever, really, did. The ghost of Kuzen was always a strong part, a dominant part, of him. It was there, always forever there. And he told me as much and I should have realized it when he said relationships between twins persisted _beyond death_. He sold his soul to Naraku and the demon brought her back, alright, in his mind And now, thanks to the devil, Zenku doesn't inhabit that body, Kuzen - _the idea of Kuzen_ - inhabits that body. I guess for Zenku it was too much to be alone, huh?" He smiled, looking from the window to his brother. "I would have been alone in this world if I lost you, Kenshin."

"You won't lose me, huh, didn't I promise?" Ken `keh'-ed and crossed his arms behind his head. "Where would I go, huh, what would I do?"

And then the cell phone in Kev's jacket rung - he reached into his pocket and removed it -

"Hm, the nurse found a cell phone just like that in my pocket," Ken said.

Kev nodded and stood, answering the call.

"Inuyasha?" he asked through whisper.

"I should've killed Zenku," a gruff, animal-like voice answered. "He knows where she lives now Detective."

Kev looked at the side, at the newspaper, where it talked about Kagome Higurashi - the so-called `Brother of Kuzen Killer's would-be victim - and how she had been saved by the `American Cop.' Was it not obvious? Was it not possible, then, that he could have saved her and doomed her? He shut his eyes and bowed his head - why did he think it would have been over?

"He knows everything," he agreed. "You think he'll try again?"

There was a pause - followed by the rattle of a figure reclining against a chair.

"Yes." It was Inuyasha's chair and it was Inuyasha's figure that sunk into it. "He will not stop."

"What happens now - with Naraku - I mean?" Kevin asked as he walked from the side of the bed to the side of the window. Tokyo looked normal and it reassured him that everything would be normal too. But more and more, with each and every heartbeat, normalcy faded into uncertainty as though he were headed into unfinished territory.

The half-demon turned off the TV - he smelled Ramen - Mrs. Higurashi inside the kitchen cooked it for him.

"With Naraku? Never can tell. What that spider's plotting will not be what we expect. Keep your eyes open, Detective Markus, he knows about you, too, and your brother. He's everywhere and wherever there is evil _he lives._ Keep your eyes and your ears open, I will be calling you from time to time."

"Wait - but -"

The half-demon hung up in the middle of Kevin's reply.

With his Tetsaiga about his shoulder, Inuyasha arose and approached the rear, glass doors of the house. Beyond them, across the pavement and the garden, was the tree. He heard its branches sway, saw its leaves fall - and the fruits of its crimson blossoms scattered upon the earth.

He opened the doors and entered into the world. For the first time in a long time with his ears uncovered and exposed. Under the light of the sun the cool, autumnal breeze fluttered his hair and swept his face.

Inuyasha brushed the white hair away from the electric eyes that stared into the tree and betrayed the sadness -

And as the scent of Naraku invaded the air he knew it was not the ending but the beginning....

**END**


End file.
